We got the tree last Saturday and started on it Sunday for a bit. Monday neither of us could get to it. Tuesday, I got many ‘un-breakables’ on the bottom. Wednesday, we both had some time to work on it together and made a good start. Thursday, we did more but I had a doctor’s appointment in Orleans that took most of the afternoon. You have to know that this is one of the biggest trees we’ve ever had. Woody had to cut off some of the top spike just to stand it up in spite of the living room being much higher at that part of the house.

Friday we were both busy. Saturday, we finally finished and then enjoyed the Big 10 championship game between Oregon and Penn State. Oregon looks like a winner and should continue to do well.

The tree is gorgeous, but funky. It is perfectly symmetrical and now stuffed every inch with ornaments: cats, cow, bears, leopard, lions, tigers, whales, dolphins, horses, insects, fish, all manner of birds, fox, pigs, octopus, frogs, bees. Also grapes, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, apples, garlic, eggplant and of course some abstract ornaments that are just pretty. Over the years, friends have noticed our silly December obsession and gifted us more. Never too many, always appreciated…especially if they’re weird.

Shaman spends much of his time under the tree and at night removes some of the unbreakable one that I put back as best I can. Schwartzie occasionally naps under it. Willow just loves to gazing up at it, kind of nodding in enjoyment. No fights about possession. I soothes me just to look at it.

I’ve been writing a couple of poems a week, and this week was no exception. We are enjoying oysters from a local oysterman. I like them best raw, but Woody made a delicious pasta dish with them. I tried new recipe this week for Tus we can beef stew that  we both liked well enough to have it again and again in the future. It will go into my regular set of recipes. We still hav live herbs in the herb garden, so I made a baked chicken aked with many herbs in dry Vermouth. It’s an easy dish.

Sometimes perfectly good dishes just drop out of use because we forget about them. I don’t make them for a while, maybe because they are summer dishes or whatever, and then I forget about them. Sometimes it’s hard to find them when I finally remember them.

Willow has been much about since her scare that sent her into her condo in the wall for a whole day and night. She enjoys the tree and all of them found our trimming it amusing.

We had the coldest temperatures so far this week, but today it’s mild and supposed to have temperatures up to 50 this week. Melenie has four inches of snow in Easthampton, but we have none here. That quick snow of 3/4s of an inch was gone by that afternoon. We’re getting rain this week, but no snow predicted.