Another cold day. We went to St. Johnsbury to get haircuts today (we both go to Kathy Fenoff at Colonial Village on Railroad Street), then we picked up some supplies for our Christmas Eve dinner with the family. The grocery stores were very busy and even the mall at St. Johnsbury Center had more cars than usual. Last-minute shopping, I guess. This was one of those days when we had several stops to make and it seemed we met someone we knew in every isle of almost every store. It was great fun, but time got away from us and we were visiting our friends at the convalescent center just as their noontime meal was being served, so that cut our visit with them a little short.

We took this picture as we were coming into Danville this morning. It was only about 8 above then and didn't warm up much all day. I don't believe it got much more than 15 or 16 above. It's 5 above now. Nearly everyone agreed the cold was unusually penetrating today. Of course, in West Danville and Danville we expected it to be colder with the wind whipping down the lake and across the hilltops, but in St. Johnsbury there was less wind but it seemed damp and just a few minutes going from store to car was bone chilling. The seat warmers in the car got a good workout!

While we were gone, we got a short e-mail from Bill and Monika. It was about 3 p.m. there when he wrote it, but he said they now have all their luggage! He also said it was very hot. I'd thought the temperatures had moderated due to the thunderstorms that showed up when I Googled to get the weather forecast last night, but moderating means going from 105 degrees to 90 degrees, which, for someone from Vermont is still darned hot. Today no rain shows up in the forecast, and there were no days forecast to be over 100 degrees in Oshakati.

We're getting more e-mailed Christmas messages this year, and that's very nice. Several people we know have said they're sending e-messages to as many people as they can on their mailing list to not only save money but also to save on waste materials. Christmas always brings a lot more paper waste to our landfills, and it seems too bad to buy and send a card that will probably only be glanced at before it's discarded. I like to display the cards I receive - most are very pretty and I enjoy thinking up new ways present and enjoy them during the holidays. Sometimes I keep special ones, usually for the message inside or because one is particularly striking, but most are tossed. I used to send them to some organization that recycled them, but after a while I got notice they had more than they could use. A group I worked with a few years ago used them to make new cards to give to seniors who either weren't able to shop for cards or who couldn't afford to buy them. That worked out pretty well but there wasn't much money to buy supplies and envelopes to go with them and postage got pretty high, so the project was dropped.

The trend seems to be growing to send e-messages, and while Emily Post might have declared it as being in bad taste, to many of us it makes perfect sense. I will continue to send cards to people without computers, but most on my list will get very sincere wishes from me the modern way, by e-mail.