The longest night is past. 
It is the blessed morning of the year. 
Beyond the window, snow 
in patches on the river bank, 
frosty sunlight on the dry corn, 
and buds on the water maples 
red, red in the cold. 
  — Wendell Berry 

The verse above is one of Wendell Berry's "Window Poems," a cycle of twenty-seven brief observations made through the window onto the vista of his Kentucky farm. Probably he is referring to the night of the winter solstice, but I take heart in it today.

We passed a most pleasant New Year's Eve. We went to a small, elegant gathering over the river (well, the Paxton Creek) and through the woods to the next neighborhood south. It started at 9:30 but we arrived fashionably late at about 10:30, after Ron (Maryland '60) was sure that the Terps had the Tennessee Volunteers well under control. (It is a measure of the nature of football mania in this town that this morning's paper had a full page article about the Penn State game which had not yet been played and a only brief sentence noting that the paper had gone to press before the end of last night's Maryland game.). Lynn was at a friend's party (also attended by the daughter of our hosts) where they stayed overnight. Almost everyone at the party we attended had a child at a party somewhere else in the township, and just past midnight the cell phones were busy indeed. Ron and I were home by one, and I took off my sparkly white sweater for the last time this season.

An ugly gray rain fell all day today, with temperatures in the forties. Periodically, chunks of snow would slide off the roof and crash to the ground. The snow is mostly melted from the back vista, and the fallen tree is just a pile of deadwood now instead of a fairly picturesque example of nature's way. I cleaned the refrigerator on Monday night, a full pull-out-all-the-shelves-and-scrub-the-walls treatment, throwing out the last of the salsa dip left from the party. This evening the three of us sat at the kitchen table together for the first time in about three weeks and had the traditional central Pennsylvania New Year's Day meal of pork and sauerkraut, after which Lynn excused herself as usual to attend to schoolwork. (no homework, she assured us, just assembling her materials and laying out her clothes for tomorrow).

There is something sad and empty about New Year's day, no matter how glorious the season has been. I'm tired of the fa-la-la, though every one I uttered this year was sincere. I'm glad to doff my gay apparel now and get back to normal.

May the new year hold every blessing for you.