Christmas at Home in Truckee

No travel this Christmas — we're staying put in Truckee, and the house has been dressed for it. Three trees this year, which is at least one more than reasonable: the noble fir by the woodstove with the glass ornaments and bead garland, a second one hung with owls and polar bears and a train track circling the skirt, and the white one loaded with the old vintage balls, the ones that catch the colored lights.

The snow outside is serious. The path to the door is a trench now, walls up past the knee, and everything in the yard has gone to soft white lumps. The little ceramic village on the windowsill sits there facing all of it, which is a funny scale to look at from inside.

Kept the stove fed most of the day. She posed next to it in her robe with the pipe like some patriarch from a Norman Rockwell scene, holding the bit in her teeth and everything. Roses and greens on the table by the fire.

Four days out. The wood basket needs refilling again already.