White-Ivied

THERE'S A THICK WHITE SNOWSKIN laid over our village and beyond, we haven't been able to venture much beyond it, but trapped in this winterland it is quite wonderful. We have been out in the whitened woods collecting holly and ivy for hanging in the house this evening. Our days are warm and hearts full to the brim. This is a blessed winter, where the creak of underfoot snow reminds me of childhood snow, icicles snapped from the crown of Father Frost hang from the thatch and the gutters, and we hunker down here in a bustle of family and good food and friends and log stacking and backgammon and walks and stories. I have many lovely things to show you: solstice fires, and snow-leaping lurchers, a new workshop, paintings, but for now while I trip over my own shoelaces to get everything done, I leave you with a mysterious hand opening a mysterious door into a new winter painting, which I'll show you in full along with all the other delights after the busyness slows.

I wish you a most blessed Christmastime, Yuletime, Wintertime yourselves, and in sincere appreciation of your appreciation of this little stopping place in the Forest, I send you my warmest wishes for much wonder in the whiteness....

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"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from whitewash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely white-ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards."

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~ Dylan Thomas ~ A Child's Christmas in Wales