Christmas Morning Musings

 Christmas has come at last!  Not soon enough in this discombobulated mid-COVID world or, do you think, too soon and too fast come round again?   ProfessorRoush is between extremes this morning with no clear path to decide.  Christmas, on the one hand, means we're closer to January 1st, closer to saying goodbye to the hell-borne year of 2020, closer to the moment when we vaccinate enough of the population to return to normalcy, or whatever passes for it.  On the other hand, I'm acutely feeling the time-spun wisdom that the years get shorter as we grow older.  Said another way, how did the past year go by so fast and why do the weeks seem to pass quicker every year?

It's a quiet Christmas this year at the ProfessorRoushs', and our Christmas tree is much simpler than in years past. We left off all the ornaments made by the kids and left off the cloth ones handsewn by me with surgical patterns when I was learning to suture back in the days when stegosaurs cut their toes.   Mrs. ProfessorRoush wanted simple white lights and red bulbs this year and who am I to argue?   I know what side my Christmas yeast rolls will be buttered on. Besides, it'll be quicker and easier to take down next week.

It's cold and frozen here, but sunny as all get out.   No gardening in the foreseeable future, but the spring equinox is coming and I'll busy be clearing out beds in a few short weeks, long before the ground thaws.  My sole contribution to the garden is a new mealworm-specific bird feeder I purchased and placed up yesterday.  I've never had mealworms out before but I'm trying to help the bluebirds out as best I can this year.  It didn't take me long to learn that mealworms don't stay put very well when the Kansas winds rock traditional feeders and those gross little dried-up carcasses are pricey.

My friends, I'll leave you after this glance out my back window into a sunny and snow-free Kansas Christmas morning.  Who needs a White Christmas anyway?