The holidays were mixed. We spent a very quiet Christmas weekend. We never got around to getting a tree, I couldn’t see the point because no one would be sharing it with us and, in the end, it is always a mess of needles and water.

Instead I hung a red bow.

And lit my candle chimes.

Well, it turns out this wasn’t enough for Tim. So next year, we will have a tree.

New Year’s Eve was celebrated with family and a Buche de Noël, complete with merengue mushrooms. I finally joined the Great British Breaking Show craze and have upped my baking.

I also tried my hand at their staple dessert, macarons. I used the wrong sort of almonds, ground instead of flour, and cheated by filling them with Nutella, but they were a hit.

I received candle molds as a gift and had just enough saved beeswax to make two adorable candles. This reminded me to order bees for next spring since my hive flew the coop, so to speak.

Days are getting longer but I got to watch the sun set behind the hills at 4 pm yesterday.

We have already had a chance to play with the snow thrower a few times, have had countless fires, moved wood around to keep up, and slept in the cabin.

So it is winter.