Christmas in the Arctic

Last night we finally got our Christmas tree put up. We're a little later than usual this year because I haven't been able to find our big tree. It was used for Vacation Bible School during the summer and never made it back to the attic afterward. You'd think a giant tree box would be hard to lose!

But you'd be wrong.

So we put up the little one I bought our first Christmas in North Dakota. Usually it languishes unwanted in the attic because it is much too small to hold all our ornaments, but not this year. This year, it's turn has come!

Hmmmm. Maybe I should be suspicious. Can Christmas trees order hits?

It...it...looks so innocent!

  

 

 We tried to get a photo in front of the tree with Finley in it, but he purely hates having his picture taken. All we managed to get was a black-and-white blur as he frantically tried to escape. So I gave up on that, but tortured him later with some pictures of him by himself.

Besides ruthlessly torturing Springer Spaniels, I've pretty much been occupied lately by trying to stay warm.  As everyone knows, the cursed jet stream has dipped south and allowed arctic air to escape where it belongs. Like all of us, once given the chance to vacation in warmer climes, the arctic has been loathe to return to it's rightful place.

Meanwhile, we've been dealing with temperatures down into the -30's---a temperature range where, oh, just about EVERYTHING stops working right! The water pipes froze up, the propane stopped working, and I've been running every possible heat source just to keep the house at 60 degrees. We had a whole 48 hour period where inside the house was only 50 degrees. But hey, once you throw on a few parkas, you can be quite comfortable lounging about the house at that temperature..

But today marks the end of our cold wave. It's going to warm up and stay warm for the foreseeable future. "Warm" in this case meaning "less cold". We will be luxuriating in temperature all the way into the twenties some of the more tropical days!

But before the arctic leaves and goes back where it belongs, I grabbed a few pictures of what "freezing" looks like. Our sunrise this morning at a warm and balmy -17 degrees....

 

 It was very pretty out, but somehow I didn't feel like lingering long for more pictures.

 Evidently, an artistic nature is another thing that stops working at sub-zero temperatures!