O, Christmas Tree

Right now is one of my absolute favorite times of the year. I love everything about it. Christmas lights. Feasts. Christmas Tree. And since we've lived in Utah, the snow. That's one of the things we didn't have on near the coast was snow, at least not anywhere near our home.

I put the tree up a couple of days ago. It's a beautiful tree, but unfortunately it's also big and unlit. It's a 7.5 ft artificial fir with little pinecones and berries scattered all over. Most of the berries have long been pulled off by curious kids or fallen off with yearly set-up/take-down routines. It took me about 6 hours to set up the tree and cover it in lights. My arms were completely ripped up from the fake needles by the end. My 3 yr old and I are decorating it tonight for Daddy. She's been so excited about Christmas ornaments that it's been keeping her up at night. I just brought up the ornaments from outside, so we're gonna have a fun night. The thick fog has rolled in again for the evening. I can't see past our barn anymore. And we're gonna have a decked out house tonight. Yup, Christmas-time, yule-tide, winter-time, winter solstice...take your pick... they all happen at the same time of the year, and they're ALL my favorite, FAVORITE time of year.

Inversion

 It's definitely a curl up on the sofa with a cup of hot coffee kind of day here. Outside of my window a thick, white fog sits over the expansive horizon as far as I can see. At first it looks very wintery and festive, until you have to go out in it. Then it's just nasty, thick SMOG. I can actually taste the air, which is never a good thing. Gross.

One of the awful things about winter in Utah is the bi-seasonal inversions we get here - summer and winter. We basically live in a bowl here between mountain ranges, along with about 1 million other people, who all drive lots of cars and with no airflow to clear out the exhaust the smog builds up and doesn't have anywhere to go. So, this puts a damper on any and all outside activities (not that I had many to begin with), but being pregnant and having young children with preemie lungs puts us in the high risk category for being affected by the nasty air. The inversion makes the temps drop outside too, so along with thick air, it's colder than it would be normally. Chickens are hanging out close to the barn. Dogs are snoozing. I don't think anything phases them, well, besides gale force winds. Even they don't care for that kind of weather. :)