The Garden is silent.  She is windblown and sodden, like a blowsy streetwalker, tired from a hard night on Skid Row, damply rheumy eyes, hair all askew, and lipstick smudged and faded.  All is not quite lost; a few roses valiantly struggle to bloom on, gasping their last breath before the sharp winter winds cut them down.  Calendula, lobelias, and a few Johnny jump-ups stand bravely in the rain, still cheery faces upturned, feet swimming in the waterlogged soil. 

     During the holiday season, we light fires, gather  friends, bring out the best dishes, and fix more food than we ever should be eating.   In our English version of Thanksgiving, we stuff ourselves with turkey, never without  Yorkshire puddings to suck up the gravy, lots of stuffing made with sausage, mushrooms, sage and onion, and always accompanied by mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and green beans and sautéed mushrooms.   Always after we have stuffed ourselves to bursting point, we then have to find room for taste-tempting pumpkin pie smothered with whipped cream, telling ourselves that come January, we begin a new year – and a healthier diet.

     At this time, sticking true to our resolutions, we will turn out back on treats and try once more to return to the low fat, whole grain fruit and vegetable diet  that deep down we know that we should be on the whole year round.    The fear of being more than “pleasingly plump” is very deep-seated, and with every extra pound of fat we hoard, there goes with it a pound of guilt.

     In the garden, the Canadian honkers congregate in the meadow, but even now it is becoming less and less congested.   It never fails to amaze me how they congregate in such numbers, almost like a honker convention, as they stay awhile, freshen up – a regular rest stop on a long yearly migration.  Then before you know it, they are off, honking mournfully, a dark narrow arrow heading south, as they take flight into the winter sky.

     The holidays are just around  the corner and the days get shorter, night settling in before we even get to begin our first cup of coffee and settle down to work.  But much as I love  the summer sunsets over the Pacific, I am in awe of the fragile beauty of the winter sunset.  Gigantic works of modern art hung above the soft pewter of the distant hills.  Ice palaces of cool turquoise, emblazoned with shot silk silver clouds, burnished gently with swirling shades of pink and purple, all echoed in the mirror calm surface of a silent lake.

     Even before Halloween has come and gone, Christmas decorations multiply rapidly throughout our small town, and as we travel homeward up the hill toward the house after a hard day’s shopping, some homes sport  more light bulbs than the casinos in Vegas.  It’s a time of year to look inward, to read, write to old friends, and reminisce.  I often wonder what happened to the children with whom I grew up, scattered as we were, like seeds in the wind, to all four corners of the earth.

            We prune evergreens to bring in bundles of sharply fragrant  limbs with which to decorate the home, dig out the Christmas decorations, bake cookies, wrap gifts, mail packages and write cards.  Though most people count the days to Christmas, I cont the days to the winter Solstice, not for any ritualistic reason, but just to know for a fact  that as the days begin to lengthen, we are headed once more on the cosmic  reoccurring journey into spring.