This week is getting away from me. Usually the week before Christmas break is a hectic one at school, but this year is worse than usual. There's just too much stuff going on. There's the "normal" holiday stuff to tackle, like rehearsing for our Christmas program and all the artsy-craftsy things we try to cram into a two-week period. This year our principal agreed to teach our 4th graders how to square dance for the program. The girls are hopping-around-delirious with joy with all the do-say-do-ing, even as the boys rend the heavens with their whining at having to touch a girl's hand. The classes will precede the dancing by reciting Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowing Evening." When researching facts in order to write lines for our announcers, I discovered that this poem is commonly thought to be an allegory for death and suicide. And here I thought it was simply a lovely description of snowy woods. It's a pity I can't share with the 4th grade boys the poem's darker meaning -- they could get some comfort (of the cold variety) from being poetically set up for the square dancing looming just ahead.
At school I have a tiny lighted Christmas tree, garlands, a poinsettia plant and the children's woven God's Eyes to decorate the classroom. Not much, but it's something. Here, at home, there is still nothing (our three Thanksgiving pumpkins continue to sit on the porch rail, but I don't suppose that I can count them). One could say that Christmas hasn't quite found its way to Frogpond yet. I'm confident that it will.
Until it does, I'm doing my best to slow down, keep kind feelings in my heart (especially towards 4th grade boys), and appreciate all the shades of winter. And so, here is a picture that Bruce took of last Saturday's lunar eclipse. Celestial and smiling like a Cheshire cat.
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