Maya arrived this afternoon with a Peace Dove to top our Christmas tree, a change from the angel or star we usually use. In these times, it seemed most appropriate. Her father ensured she did not fall from the ladder as she placed the ornament, a white dove with an olive branch in its beak. The photo was taken by Jeanine’s sister, Susan, who is staying with us for several days, along with her friend Jean. The kids are all here, as well as Nicolai’s girlfriend, Nicole, whom I will refer to as Teddy going forward.

We enjoyed Raclette for dinner, a communal meal centered around melting and scraping cheese, traditionally over boiled potatoes, cured meats, and pickled vegetables like cornichons. It has been our traditional Christmas Eve dinner ever since our local Chinese restaurant closed. We used to dine there with the Budris family.

‘Twas two nights before Christmas, and all through the house, the air smelled of baking, no doubt by my spouse. The tree lights were twinkling, the stockings hung tight, each ribbon and bauble reflecting the light. I poured us some glögg, the cinnamon bold, and marveled at memories—new ones and old. Then, out in the yard, came a rustling sound; the recycling bin had been knocked to the ground! But wait—through the shadows, a scuttling thunk. No raccoon at all, but that flowerbed punk! The woodchuck—my rival, my furry torment— Had come back for vengeance, or maybe just scent. He snorted and waddled, as bold as could be, then looked in my eyes, quite unbothered by me. The cone flowers he’d leveled flashed back in my mind— last spring’s devastation of the botanical kind. I dashed to the closet, adrenaline high, my trusty air rifle glinting close by. I pumped it up twice, then three times—no fear— and crept through the moonlight, my quarry quite near. He froze by the trash can, then vanished from sight— a ghost in the snow, a brown blur in the night. I fired! It ricocheted straight off the bin, and startled the neighbors (and probably him). Now back in my slippers, my pride slightly dented, I pondered the duel that fate had fermented. The beast lives to burrow, to mock, and to feast— and I, the defeated, salute the fat beast.

For many years, I have eschewed wrapping Christmas gifts in fancy paper just to have it discarded in the trash. Saved paper grocery bags have been my go-to substitute. This year, I have turned my recycling efforts in a new direction. For many presents, I utilized leftovers from my shop to fashion custom “gift enclosures.” Unlike wrapping paper, opening these gifts will take some time and may require the use of tools. In the case of the one pictured above, the post “unwrapping” remnants might make an interesting toy for Maya’s cats. For the record, Jeanine fails to see the humor or Christmas spirit in my conservation efforts. Just wait till she sees how I “wrapped” her present this year!

For the second consecutive year, our kids invited their friends over for a holiday brunch. This year we had 38 guests, including a few parents who were also friends of ours. The multigenerational party lasted from noon until sunset with a menu that included overnight brioche praline French toast, mini frittata muffins, a spiral ham, fresh fruit, and an array of desserts.

Relatively mild weather allowed guests to spend time outdoors for a fire ceremony organized by Maya. This ritual involves writing down thoughts or intentions and burning them to release the past, let go of negative emotions, set intentions, or manifest desires.

How do you move a 220-pound headboard from your basement shop to a first-floor bedroom without a team of strong movers? Answer: You turn it into a bus. Using the resources available to me, I added wheels to the front and back of my woodworking creation. Doing so allowed me to single-handedly move it from my shop, out the shop door, around the outside of the house, and up to the steps of the front door. At this point, I enlisted the help of Maya to get it up the stairs and through the door. Jeanine assisted by standing on the cantilevered plywood at the top of the stairs to make sure it did not move under the weight of the metal ramp’s top lip. Due to the very low ground clearance of the “bus,” it was necessary to lift the entire back end to the level of the entry as soon as the front wheels cleared the ramp. Maya, despite her diminutive stature, proved quite a mighty assistant, and together we managed the lift. Once inside the house, I swapped the wheels for a dolly, which made steering through the hallways to the bedroom a breeze. Once there, Jeanine, Nico, Maya, and I rotated it into place atop the nightstands to complete the project. I am very pleased with the final product and, more importantly, so is Jeanine.

High winds today brought down trees and power lines throughout Concord. I had to take a significant detour while returning from a consulting gig as the main road through downtown was completely blocked. When I arrived, the power was out in our neighborhood, but not at our house, where our backup battery system was online. As is always the case, our municipal power company had electrical service restored in short order, just over twenty minutes. The story was not as rosy for our fiber optic broadband service, which was out of commission for more than 30 hours after the top of a utility pole snapped off (pictured above). The repair required a new pole and the replacement of 700 feet of 96-strand fiber.

Today, I completed the bookshelf headboard, the last component for our new bedroom suite. It is shown clamped upside down to a dolly, which has allowed me to move it around the shop. It is, no doubt, the largest piece of furniture I have ever built, and the main construction challenge has been dealing with the weight of over 200 pounds while working alone. When the kids visit next weekend, I will enlist their help to move this behemoth from my shop to our main bedroom and set it on the nightstands that will support it. All that remains to be done is to connect the built-in reading lights to their respective controls and power supply.

Most stone sculptures are created using a subtractive process. Material is slowly removed to reveal the artist’s vision. I made the piece featured above using an additive process. Over a period of years, I added one layer of calcium oxalate at a time to form the final contours. My previous attempts did not have the same surface texture or symmetry that I find so interesting in this one. I have added it to my collection and hope to display it along with some of my other creations at a future exhibit. Unlike some of my other endeavors, work on this project involves a chemical process that takes place in the background, requiring minimal time and attention from me. The only difficult part, which can be a real pain, is removing the artifact from the chemical reactor in which it was formed, especially if permitted to grow beyond the dimensions of the outlet line.

The pictured nightstands will serve as the base for a large bookshelf-style headboard to complement the platform bed I recently completed. I would have finished the project yesterday when the drawer slide hardware arrived if not for the fact that I had fabricated all 6 drawer boxes to the wrong depth. The nightstands are 18 inches deep, and that was the depth I used for the drawer boxes rather than the 15-inch depth of the drawer slides. Fortunately, I devised a rather clever way to slice 3 inches out of the drawers without compromising their integrity or appearance. Incidentally, these 6 drawers bring the total number I have built for our house to 120. I think I can safely say that we do not need any more and that these will be the last ones.

Back in October, Jeanine and I joined a local fitness facility and have been going together regularly. As I walked past her on the elliptical machine today, she had the biggest grin I have ever seen on anyone working out. I have little doubt that she was listening to a humorous podcast and must be sure to ask her about it. I listen to the news on NPR, which tends to have the opposite effect on me.

We were graced by about an inch of snow today. High winds prevented it from accumulating on tree limbs but it was happy to settle on the iced-over sections of the river and distant Fairhaven Bay. I opted to fly from the comfort of our living room (although it may be difficult to see me through the window) rather than venturing outdoors for a second time, the first to clear snow from the driveway.

I used the pink slab of insulation as a takeoff and landing pad to keep my drone from getting wet.

As part of a Conantum community tradition, we hosted a holiday potluck open house for our neighbors this evening for the second time in a row. Each year, ~10 residents host a party attended by ~20 neighbors. Our oldest guest was 90, and our youngest was 2. As always seems to be the case, most folks congregated in the kitchen area despite comfortable seating only steps away. Our kitchen was designed to handle multiple cooks, but the wide aisles also facilitate gathering around the island.

Of the recent gatherings we have hosted, preparation for this one seemed easy by comparison. I steam-roasted a large turkey breast, and Jeanine added holiday decorations throughout the house. She called me to the front hallway to photograph our digital picture frame, which was displaying a picture of young Maya in a tasseled winter hat. This, only moments after she had placed a Santa Claus hat on one of my mother’s sculptures, creating an admittedly humorous juxtaposition.

Last weekend, Jeanine and I drove downtown for the Concord holiday parade and tree lighting ceremony. Having forgotten the start time, we were late to the festivities. While this made finding a parking spot easy, we missed all but the carolers who performed in colonial period attire to end the event. Also forgotten was that I had taken this picture, but hadn’t downloaded it until today.

I completed the bed platform I started building last week today. I added horizontal slats, which serve two functions. The spacing allows the mattress to “breathe” while the 1/2″ thickness permits them to flex, adding a modest amount of give to the foundation. The slats are floating to allow them to bend. Fixed spacers provide permanent alignment. I can’t wait to test the feel of our mattress on the new frame. If it needs to be firmer, I can replace the slats with thicker ones, and should it be too firm, with thinner ones. I will probably need to wax the slat support surfaces to prevent squeaking during vigorous activity on the mattress. I am looking forward to that aspect of testing.