A December to Remember!

When the chill of winter begins to wrap itself around us in early December, the girls begin stacking oak on the front porch for our wood stove. Several weeks ago as I was gathering up the last of the logs just beyond the front door, a slithery tongue hissed out at me from the concrete. I continued to pick up the wood, assuming that the harmless critter who partially identified himself had been enjoying the last warm days of November when December took him by surprise and forced him to scurry under the wood pile for protection against the freezing bite of winter weather.


















It was my daughter who pointed out to me several seconds later that he was a baby rattler. Knowing that I had neglected to put on my leather gloves that night, I quietly wrestled with a chilling thought or two about his indecision to strike me and where I might have ended up if he'd chosen to do so. He wasn't so lucky. His death was certain and swift.

Life is precarious, isn't it?

The girls were invited in early December to a house decorating party where the host built her houses out of home-made gingerbread cookie dough.



I never gave much thought to this holiday tradition because the kits in the craft stores always looked like they tasted like cardboard.


I marveled over the girls' creativity and made a mental note of the smiles that stretched far and wide across their faces.


After eating everything BUT the cardboard, we decided to have a party so that we wouldn't have to wait until next Christmas to make them again!