Perfect Storm

 Well, this Christmas went better than Christmas has in quite a few years. Just as I posted the previous entry noting that I seem to recognize the nature-centric elements of the holiday a bit more this year than usual, the nature spirits seem to have appeared to say hello and present me with gifts of their own.


First, was the occurrence Christmas Eve night/Christmas Day morning, around midnight. I was online in the family room (where my parents' computer is located) when my mom called me to the window of my bedroom. There, trotting around the Nativity scene and trying to get into the birdfeeder, were at least six or seven beautiful deer, right there next to my bedroom window. I watched them for at least ten or fifteen minutes before they wandered off.

Christmas morning went smoothly. We had breakfast and opened gifts at my parents' house, followed by lunch and gifts at my aunt's house. I will probably be spending the remainder of my vacation (until Jan 4) being generally unproductive and watching the movies I got for Christmas, and catching up on reading. At around 9:00AM it began snowing. Within the hour, the ground was covered in snow, and by the end of the day it was up to almost my ankles, if not higher. We've gotten snow before or after Christmas before, but the news stations report that this is the first time we've had a large amount of snow fall on Christmas Day since 1947. I took quite a few pictures, some of which I may post here once I get back to my computer and uploaded. I walked around outside several times, taking in the scenery and meditating and praying to the beauty of it all. I wandered to a section of what's left of the small forest behind the house, and came across what was once a small "tree house" that my sister and I used to play in as little kids. I use that term loosely, because as my sister is disabled, the treehouse is a treehouse in the sense that it is a bunch of plywood nailed around tree trunks. At that time I was into shows like "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?", and the big thing for us was to pretend we were secret agents, and the treehouse was our headquarters. I was somewhat saddened to see that the structure had finally collapsed on itself with age. By this time, my mom had joined me, and we dug through to see what could be found. All that was still remotely intact was my sister's old Pocahontas bookbag, which contained some of her old toys and two diaries. One was locked; the other had only been written in on one page, dated, coincidentally, December 25 - we found it on the exact anniversary of its first usage. It had been given to her by our now deceased grandmother, who died when I was in 9th grade, which would put this entry probably about 3-4 years prior. 

In all honesty, I'm hoping these are all omens of some sort for a good 2011. God knows I need a really good year for a change.