Down the lane, tree tops glisten....

The snow here in southern New England hasn't been very memorable, but that's fine with me during these busy weeks before Christmas.  And it's early days, yet.  The real snow doesn't fall until the year turns and we're deep into the dim, cloud-heavy days of mid-winter.

We've had two small squalls so far, each of them dropping a pretty 'icing' on trees and gardens. The last one turned to rain overnight, leaving a thick carpet of sleet on the roads and pavement and making them something of a challenge to negotiate on foot. But it's all part of the season and I wouldn't change it for anything. 

Once Christmas Day has come and gone, and the New Year has been celebrated, I'll be hunkering down and readying myself for the window-rattling winds that whistle down the chimney.  Perhaps we'll have a blizzard... or two.  One never knows in this neck of the woods.  The salt air of the ocean sometimes interferes, shifting the snow line further north.

If we do find ourselves in the grip of a heavy snow, I hope it's the sort that keeps us all indoors and off the roads. The kind of storm that leads to ventures to the mailbox in your nightgown, lots of wood fires on the grate, endless pots of tea with cinnamon toast or scones, and comradely shoveling larks in late afternoon, once the flakes begin to wane, waving over the road to one another.

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan

Earth stood hard as iron

Water like a stone

Snow was falling, snow on snow

In the bleak mid-winter, long ago

—Christina Rosetti

A soft blanket of snow at a loved one's cabin on the coast of Maine. Our time will come...