IN WHICH WE CELEBRATE JOHN THE BELOVED

According to Christian scripture and tradition, John was the only one of the twelve named disciples who was not martyred. Believed to be the writer of the Gospel and Revelation, he was exiled to the island of Patmos for a while, but died in Ephesus (in modern Turkey). He was an inspiration to many of the desert Christian hermits, and became a leader of the emerging Celtic branch of the Church. (The Celtic culture spread from Turkey to the British Isles.)

One matter overlooked yesterday: as well a Boxing Day, it is also time to recall St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. You may be familiar with him through the well-known Christmas carol:

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

Meanwhile, at home . . .

Today I decided to live dangerously and take my camera outside to get a winter picture of our house.

You can barely see the Christmas lights on the house. It's a grey day — of which we have had a lot throughout December — at about 5:00 p.m. You can't tell much about the snow from the picture. It's about half way to knee-deep, deeper where it is piled up. 

This is the back of the house. The window on the left is where my study is located.

Other Family Members . . .

This is Pippa, one of our daughter's dogs. She stayed with us for a few days while our daughter was out of town on business just before Christmas. Pippa's sister, Bella, was camera shy.

Wrapping up

All in all it's been a quiet day around the Bears' place. A good day for relaxing, reading, conversing, and generally taking life very slowly. Slow is good, particularly at this time of year.

Blessings and Bear hugs!

IN WHICH WE MARK BOXING DAY

Boxing day traditions include giving the servants the day off. That's true for the dishwasher and oven this year, but I think I am going to need to use the microwave to heat my lunch. (I didn't have any breakfast — didn't need any, with all the food we have had recently.)

It's still too cold to take the camera outside, but I've got this nice picture of our house from around the time we moved in.

Front door to the left, living room and main bedroom in the middle,
the two floors of solaria to the right.

Today is also the day that my wife and daughter go shopping together. I read somewhere (earlier today) that close to half of all Christmas presents are purchased on Boxing Day. Could this possibly mean that even Black Friday is a second-rate shopping day? Boggles the imagination!

And, following years of tradition, they went to a move last night. I had the house, particularly the fire place, all to myself for a while. 

Time for lunch, then go out and shovel the snow which has accumulated. Snow shovelling seems a reasonable activity for the day. That's good.

And since we're still in the Christmas season, Christmas blessings and Bear hugs!