Yesterday morning view from my office window at 7 o'clock. Picture my nose mashed against the screen and eyes glazed over dreaming of a different view...
 
Today, picture me on my way to camp, visions of the lake and the forest bright in my heart. If I were a dog my tail would be wagging...

Here comes the sun...
Christmas daybreak view from the front window at camp.
I wish you a happy day.

If a small string of solar powered lights come on at dusk and nobody sees them, are they really shining?
 
I threaded this little beauty through some frail birch branches at camp the first week of November, then went away. Away for seven weeks.
 
Now, we're back. The sun has set. Our lights are blazing in the trees.

My mother's ice candle remembrance for another year. This year the candle is shared with my dad, John MacKenzie, Mary's parents Lou and Marie Ginzer, and Mary's life long friend Alison Veseley-Rice who died two weeks ago.
 
As always, I hope those who wish a pleasant remembrance will look once in awhile and enjoy the pretty view with a smile.

Just like a boyhood Christmas morning. What will it be? Are there presents underneath the tree?
Here's the view from my deck at 5 o'clock this morning. I'm an older boy now and jumping with excitement to see if the lake froze overnight.
C'mon daylight!

Thirty years ago I might have been the first guy blasting a snowmobile across the newly frozen lake. These days, despite the surging urge to get going, force the first run to camp, and breathe in the beginning of a new season, I sat out that opportunity in favor of a leisurely cigar and a bottle of fine wine while preparing 11 pounds of pork belly to cure into homemade smoked bacon.
 
Mmmmm... bacon !
 
Through the glorious Havana haze of cigar, and delirious Merlot daze, I delighted in seeing, through the window of my basement lounge, the first snowmobile of the season crossing the lake and a bush plane on skis, touching down on the ice and taxiing to shore this afternoon.
 
This is exciting December stuff. In only a few days we'll have apple wood smoke, smothering racks of bacon, curling from the cooker and snowmobile rockets propelling us across the frozen lakes and through the woods to our paradise in the bush to celebrate Christmas.