Today is so bitingly cold I didn’t even bother to go out to chase the red spawn off the deck away from the birdseed. I did watch from the window and thought of ways to discourage it now that I haven’t the hose. The potato gun is still in the top spot, and one of those blaster squirt guns has made the list. My poor birds can’t get at the feeder so I am determined to rid my yard of this vermin.

The weather is cold, dark, damp and ugly and will stay ugly all week as we’ll have rain for the next few days, and winter rain is seldom welcomed. Even running to the car means getting wet and being cold. The roads get icy. Stopping often means sliding. I sometimes slide right by my street as the icy corner is difficult to maneuver.

I hate scraping my windshield. Sometimes the ice is so thick it takes a monumental effort to clear. Two of the best reasons to retire are not having to scrape the windshield or leave in the dark for work.

I remember when we used to decorate the picture window with snowflakes, stars and snowmen. My mother usually bought the kit which had paper stencils and a spray can of fake snow. One of us would hold the stencil while the other sprayed. We’d take turns. It was a popular decoration when I was a kid, and most houses in my neighborhood had snowflakes on their windows.

My father always decorated the bushes in front of our house with strings of lights. The bulbs on those outside strings were huge and bright. We’d watch my dad from the windows and when he was finished, we’d all run outside to see the lights. My house at Christmas was always beautiful to me. Candles with orange bulbs were in the single windows and a five bulb holder was in the picture window. The bases of all those candles were white plastic, and my mother sometimes had to tape the bases to the windowsills so they wouldn’t fall. Every year we’d pull the old yellow tape off before using the new tape.

Darkness was the best time. We’d plug in the outside lights then run to the windows to turn on the bulbs. That was done by hand, turning each bulb until it lit. Christmas always brought light to the darkness.