A Christmassy end to a bad year

 

How could anything bad have happened in a world this beautiful? Our terrible 2021 is coming to a close in a blaze of glory. Photo by John Denniston.

Last night's snowfall transformed our front garden into a portrait of green and white. Photo by John Denniston.

In this hellish year of floods, fire, heat and plague, we weren’t sure what might be in store for the last week of 2021. It was unusually cold for Vancouver, for sure, with stories of hummingbirds falling frozen from their perches, and Omicron numbers so high that authorities gave up counting.

But it was also a white Christmas and a truly Christmassy week.  We added to that by treating ourselves to new books and a chocolate run to Beta5 bakery, but the big gift came today. We woke to a cloud of fluffy snow that turned our garden into a white forest. The sun shone, the temperature rose, and my back-porch hummingbird stopped hunching and started soaring. A hint of a better year to come?  

Some photos from our unexpectedly pleasant end to a terrible year:

On Wednesday, we extended our Christmas gluttony by a day and picked up some more treats at Beta5 Bakery. Because gluttony should be shared, we dropped some off for Linda. Here's she reacting to a boxed chocolate called, "Lump of Coal." Photo by John Denniston.

Oh, and a cream puff. She chose the Chai version, shown at the left in the photo below. Photo by John Denniston. 

Linda's elaborate cream puff with what looks like a copper hat, and her lump of coal, split.

Our cream puffs were coffee and vanilla. Each have their own distinctive little hats. Photo by John Denniston.

Here are their innards. I got a good look at them for the first time; usually we don't stop to look, we just inhale. Photo by John Denniston.

The lump of coal, close up. Photo by John Denniston.

The lump of coal, dissected. Once again, it was fun to see how those things are actually built. Photo by John Denniston.

Back to the snowfall, this was what we saw when we opened the front door this morning. Photo by John Denniston.

The back yard, before shovelling. Photo by John Denniston.

Carol in a cloud of snow. I brush snow off the hedges and trees to prevent it getting too heavy as it melts and refreezes. Photo by John Denniston.

The front-steps clean-off. They don't look as beautiful as with snow, but they're better to walk on. Photo by John Denniston. 

By the time I'd finished shaking the snow off the back-yard trees and hedges, I was a little snowy myself. Photo by John Denniston.

The bird bath wore a fluffy cap of white. Photo by John Denniston.

The bird-seed holder had one too. Photo by John Denniston.

This strange object is my effort to supply birds with unfrozen water. The black thing is a dish of water. It's sitting in a plastic basin filled with an unloved, discarded pair of pajamas for insulation. The basin is sitting on an old sweater draped over the little bird bath. As far as I know, no bird went near this all day. Photo by John Denniston.