Christmas was sweet~

How nice to have a quiet Christmas this year. Dick had an awful cold, only now winding down, and he generously passed it on to me, although it was much less debilitating. Since we've been having cold rainy weather--and we do need the rain--we both pretty much stayed indoors and let Santa do all the work.

Yes, I did get my new digital camera! It's a Canon PowerShot A560 (whatever that means) and has more dials and controls than could be imagined. There are 3 separate books of directions (besides the 3 in Spanish, which I tossed). One book is the brief "introduction to the camera." Then there's a more detailed instruction book. And finally, a thick book of advanced directions! ARGHHHHH

Yes, I did take some pictures, of Dick beside our tree wearing the Auburn, Alabama orange tee-shirt and cap his son sent to him. Tomorrow, I'll see if one of those 3 books can show me how to take a picture of our tree without a flash, as it is one of the prettiest (fake!) trees, already lighted, ever.

When we lived in northern Maine those 19 years, we'd cut our own tree, haul it home, and set it up right outside our sliding glass doors onto the covered front porch of our log home. It was sheltered from the heaviest snow falls, but was always dusted with snow that blew over the porch. We'd see tourists stop and take pictures of our house on the side of a small mountain, and we'd always drive over to the other side of Echo Lake to look at the full effect of the colorful lighted tree.

Now, though, with just the two of us, we've opted for the fake already lighted tree, set up in the front room's bay window. Dick put a string of twinkling colored lights all the way up our quarter-mile driveway, and I'll miss them when we take them down at the new year. That's the Royal "we" since I tend to point at the lights as he climbs the ladder to take them down~