It's 11:11 on 1/1/11

Happy new year!

White Christmas

Here's a bit of Nashville snow trivia that I lifted from this site:

First White Christmas Since 1993

We have already seen a snow fall this winter cause problems on the roadways, but this is only the ninth Christmas with measurable amounts of snow since snowfall record-keeping began in Nashville back in the winter of 1884 and 1885. The last time measurable snow fell on Christmas Day in Nashville was in 1993 when three-tenths of an inch was measured.

Trace amounts of snow fell on Christmas in 2002. Statistically there is only a 7 percent chance of measurable snow on any given Christmas in Nashville. The most snow ever to fall on Christmas in Nashville is 2.7 inches in 1969.

Our friends in Boston and Wisconsin are probably laughing at this, but snow on the ground here is a serious problem.  I ventured out on a recent school snow day and saw lots of cars in ditches.  There are lots of narrow windy country roads with no shoulders and big ditches, so it's kind of scary to drive on them even if it's just raining.  Yesterday they canceled church and we got to stay home and play with all our Christmas presents!

The Christmas Room

Howard and I haven't bought a Christmas tree for at least the last three years.  Sad, right?  This year we felt inspired to actually leave the house - on Black Friday - to get a tree.  We thought we wanted a fake tree, picked one out first thing, and wheeled it all over Lowe's while we looked at other stuff we thought we needed.  At the last minute we decided we wanted a real tree.  We bought our biggest tree ever - from the 8' to 9' section.  The truck came in really handy.  The Lowe's guy just 'threw' the tree into the back of the truck - easiest tree transport EVER!

The presents are in the back. We decided 
to emphasize the Savior's birth by 
putting some nativities under the tree.

My homage to The Christmas Creche Exhibit 
in Palo Alto, CA.

Okay, so I have a bit of a stocking and metal 
reindeer fetish. My sister-in-law made us the snowman

wall hanging several years ago.  Isn't it cute!?!

The Christmas Room

Santa Sighting

Seriously...he's the real deal!

Narnia?

Look what I found behind Walmart!

We had icicles like this in Wisconsin, only way thicker!  I could never take a picture because they were along a highway where there was no safe place to stop for a Kodak moment.  So, I was pretty excited to be able to finally get a picture of some.  When I see them, I feel like I've been transported to some exotic fantasy land.

I'm pretty sure these icicles are flowing off of (or through?) limestone.  There's limestone everywhere around here - it's one of the first things I noticed when we got off the plane.  In fact, there's so much limestone here in Tennessee that in 1979 it was declared the official state rock.