On the third day of Christmas...

We finally have the great meltdown. My street is 99% clear, and even the BMW that was parked in the illegal spot opposite our building for over a week has disappeared.

Dirt-encrusted snow boulders still line the plowed streets, but they will go away eventually. Now the danger is flooding and avalanches. At mid-day there was a 5-mile backup on I-90, as traffic was halted for avalanche control in the pass.

At Christmas I like vintage. The wreath is actually a 4-inch metal ornament we've had around for years. None of us can remember where it came from or when - it's just there, in the decorations box. A few years ago I started hanging it on the front door. Who said a wreath had to be huge?

And here's a vintage Christmas greeting, from "Private Screening," an elegant second-hand shop in Fremont. The image is embossed on heavy paper, with the name of the senders engraved inside.


Posting it is an excuse to link to my favorite Christmas poem, Eliot's "Journey of the Magi." Even when you know that Eliot borrowed some of the best lines and images from a sermon on the Epiphany, delivered by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes on Christmas Day 1622, it's still a moving poem, full of wonder and sadness and regret and imagination.