I have been cooking all morning, making a Moroccan style beef short rib tagine, lemon spinach couscous salad, and orange-chocolate pot de creme. That, along with the pear-fennel soup I made last night, was the menu for Christmas dinner.
I was also going to make a chocolate angel food cake to take to the dinner I was invited to for Christmas Eve, following the family hike I was also invited to join.
My son and his father and stepmother were going to be here on Christmas Day to share the dinner with me, so a few days ago, when the snow had almost but not quite melted, I went out with my bow saw to look for a Christmas tree. The one I found looked pretty scrawny when I got it home, about eight feet tall but delicately limbed, to say the least. There were so few branches I thought I wouldn't be able to get all my ornaments on it. Now, however, fully decorated, it must surely be one of the best Christmas trees ever. (My mother, every Christmas: "It's the best tree ever!")
It is slender, so it doesn't take up a lot of room. I don't knock ornaments and tinsel off branches when I go to the bathroom, and I don't have branches dangling over my shoulder when I sit on the couch. It looks lusciously decorated, with all my ornaments—yes, I used them all—draped from every possible branch.
And then, after all that, after the cooking and the decorating and the buying of spirits and gifts, no one will be here to celebrate with me. I will not make the chocolate angel food cake because I won't be joining the other family on Christmas Eve. It's all because it'll be a white Christmas for me in my little house on the mountain.
Snow is predicted, at this altitude, practically non-stop, starting at 5:00 this afternoon (Thursday). All plans have crumbled. Ela is not coming down from Vashon. Dan and Tracy wouldn't be able to get up my road so won't be here, either. The Christmas Eve plans with friends have been canceled.
Instead, I will drink eggnog with Kahlua in front of a cheerful fire in the stove. I will eat my good dinner and open my gifts. I will do Zoom calls with my family. And, if predictions hold true, I will watch snow fall, hour after hour, all day long. I will watch the snow fall for days. I will watch it pile up in great heaps of white loveliness. I will take the car the half-mile down the road to the paved road, which stays plowed, then will walk back up the road in the snow. Maybe, as it keeps snowing, I will be able to put on my skis and ski up the mountain. I will miss the planned and eagerly anticipated celebration, but there are worse things than being snowbound for Christmas.
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