"make your house fair as you are able"

I gussied up a little thrifted wreath with a short strand of fairy lights and some bright ribbon. It's on the front door. It has "felt" like Christmas since the beginning of December, with prematurely cold temps and snow, which has hung around because it was too cold for it to melt. Now, with Christmas a week away, we're having a warm spell; the snow is almost gone and it will be over sixty tomorrow! (this is why I left some lighter weight sweaters in my closet) However, it may snow again on Tuesday, which would be very nice and rather convenient, if all goes according to the forecast. 

 I've been thinking again about different ways of viewing the seasons. Winter officially begins on Sunday, and ends late March. Meteorologically, all of December, January and February are the winter months. But this article mentioned something I hadn't heard of before this summer, that there's something called solar winter, which is November, December and January. As for summer, and fall, I can understand a solar season. But there is no way, where I live, that February could ever be thought of as a spring month. And March - sometimes, maybe, a little. And so I figured that since this way of thinking dates back to the Middle Ages, it's a European way of thinking, maybe even British, where the climate isn't as harsh. 

Then I picked up Towers in the Mist:

"It was February the fourteenth, ... The gray mist ... had in it a warmth and fragrance that told of the coming of spring. The smell of the earth was in it, a soft wet earth through which the snowdrops had already driven their green spears... It seemed all there behind the mist, the colors of all the springs that had passed and yet would come again, the riotous music of bird song and falling water that would pour over the earth in so short a while. In the darkest days of January one might doubt if it would come again, but on these warm February days one was certain."

                                                                   -   Elizabeth Goudge

And there you have it, straight from an Englishwoman.

I started the mitts for my friend two weeks ago and then didn't touch them again - for various reasons - but they go along quickly and I picked them up again last night. 

I just need to stick with it.

I hope you all are on track with whatever your Christmas preparations are, and are also able to keep yourselves from anything unrealistic. There has to be some way of balancing one's hopes and expectations with one's reality, i.e., time and energy. 

Make your house fair as you are able.
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today;
Love, the Guest, is on the way.