New Year's Day

Morning time during the holidays, you will find Jilda and I sipping our coffee and listening to holiday music by the light of our Christmas tree. It's a ritual we enjoy.

Normally, the tree is up about three weeks before Christmas but this year with my surgery in December, it threw our schedule off. This meant the tree went up late. 

We learned that putting the tree up closer to Christmas, we don't grow tired of the decorations before the big day.

But as both our grandmothers would have told you had you been within earshot – "Leaving the tree up after New Years is BAD LUCK." And who needs that? So we always take the tree down on New Year's day.

After breakfast this morning, we bundled up and walked the dogs. It wasn't that cold, but the wind was blowing a fine mist in our faces which made it feel much cooler than it was.

On the last lap, I got ahead of Jilda and came in through the front door. When she came through the back yard, she saw a deer bound through the field and into the woods. They keep a low profile during hunting season, so we don't often seem them during the daylight hours. I'm not sure if something spooked this one or what. I wish I had seen him.

Once back from the walk, we got down to business and with teamwork, we managed to have the decorations down and boxed up in a few hours.

This afternoon, when we sat down to rest a few moments, we noticed the great room looked much bigger.

We don't really do resolutions, but we both do goals. I finalized mine and Jilda did hers. As expected, several things appeared on both our lists.

This evening we did our final gathering for this holiday season. We got a chance to see my siblings and the children of my brother Neil which we adore. I really wish we saw them more often, but they are grown now with families of their own. 

I hope this New Year's Day has been a good one for you as well. 

This picture is from last December.