We awoke to rain this morning. I measured .37 in, which was a little more than surrounding areas were reporting this morning. At around 11 o'clock I began to see some snow in the air, and that's apparently going to be the rule most of the day. Our temperature is just about at the freezing mark, and there is a slight wind, but nothing like we had on Friday, I think it was, when lots of people lost power.

We have noticed our neighbors, Ms. Donlon and the Prevost's across the pond on Davidson Drive have Christmas lights up. We have one string of white lights on my plants in the corner window - I put them up for Thanksgiving. Later, we'll have our Christmas tree there. I'm going to try out the LED lights this year. Also, we've ordered an artificial Christmas tree.

I can hear the boos already. But here's my thought. For years Fred and I have been planting trees - evergreens, maples, beeches, all sorts of them with the idea we should be helping the planet. So why then go an chop one down just for a few weeks of enjoyment and then take it out and burn it or whatever? Plus, I don't like the needles coming off, it can be a fire hazard, and is generally a lot of work. Of course, manufacturing the artificial tree probably uses a lot of energy and puts stuff into the atmosphere, etc.

Anyway, we thought we'd give it a try. We may not like it at all and go back to either trudging through the woods to "find the perfect tree," or visit one of our neighbors who raise them. It was a hard decision, and I admit I have had some guilt pangs, but we'll just see how it goes. It looked nice in the picture - we ordered it on line weeks ago and the package came last Wednesday. Because we were deep into Thanksgiving preparations, we put it aside until yesterday, and then we were astonished to find out we'd been sent something entirely different instead of our tree. Think somebody was trying to tell us something?

We got it all straightened out and our tree is on the way and the errant package will be picked up and returned tomorrow. This is not going to be as easy as we thought, I guess.