2021 Life Logs, Day 358: Christmas Eve Gift of Snow
Date: Friday, December 24, 2021
Weather: Snowy; High Temp 29, Low Temp 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
When I got up this morning and looked out the window, I was shocked to see the ground covered in a thin blanket of white snow.
And it was still snowing. What a wonderful gift on Christmas Eve! A little snow had been predicted, but it was supposed to be too warm for it to stick. I’m so glad the weather forecast was wrong this time. Shadow and I spent most of our morning outside romping in the snow and then walking our morning mile. Shadow rolled his tennis ball in the snow and enjoyed eating snow.
Shortly after I got him in November of 2019, we had an early December snow, a little more than today, and I learned then how much he loves running in the snow. This morning as he ran to catch his tennis ball, I felt such a sense of peace. Somehow a world covered in snow seems so peaceful. In these turbulent times, those moments of peace are needed. Unfortunately rain is in the forecast for Christmas Day. But we will be inside opening presents and eating wonderful food, so I doubt that we will notice.
I went to Heather and Jed’s in the afternoon to deliver my bags of Christmas presents and to help finish baking our Christmas cookies. Ollie volunteered to play Santa Claus and get presents out of a couple of the bags and place them around the tree.
The other bags are assigned to one of the Goldstones and will be opened tomorrow. Then it was on to the cookies. We made the sugar cookie and molasses gingerbread cookie dough last Saturday. Two dozen of the cookies will be delivered to families in need tomorrow afternoon. In fact, Heather will be spending an hour or two tomorrow afternoon volunteering to get Christmas dinners delivered to needy families. I can’t think of a better way to spend part of Christmas Day. Heather, Ollie, and I did most of the cookie making today. More accurately, Heather and Ollie did most of the cut outs while I assisted by shuffling cookies from the oven to the cooling racks and then making icing for decorating.
But again, I mostly watched Heather and Ollie do the decorating. Plus, Jed helped out. Ollie decorated special cookies for Santa and put a carrot on the China plate for Rudolph . . . because Santa deserves to eat off real China.
We took a break between baking cookies and decorating them to have dinner. We started with oysters and an array of cheeses and olives.
The main course tonight was a meat pie with salad. I had actually never heard of a meat pie (ground beef, pork, and lamb with mashed potatoes mixed in and enclosed in a pie crust), but it was delicious.
Heather also made a poppy seed cake for dessert in the Bundt pan I gave Heather and Jed for their anniversary this year. It makes an impressive presentation.
Heather also had each of us look for a special paper ornament on the tree. Each ornament represented a donation made by the Goldstones. Heather had made donations to Belonging To Each Other, an organization that supports the homeless in Falmouth, the Boothbay Land Trust, the Wampanoag Tribe, and public radio. And there was one gift to the Goldpebbles. Heather uses an organization called Paper Culture to print her Christmas cards. They use only recycled paper and plant a tree for every order made. And by the way, they are cheaper than using Shutterfly. The card on the Christmas tree saying a tree had been planted in honor of the Goldpebbles was the gift.
I will return to Heather and Jed’s early in the morning for opening presents. So once again, I must stop writing and get to bed. It is time for Santa to work his magic. But one more thing. This morning I got a text from Heather saying Happy Christmas Eve with a photo of Jonah in his gnome Hannah Anderson PJ’s and his gnome sport coat. Jonah is stylin’! 
