This is my Christmas tree . . . which is actually a small lavender plant. I am ridiculously pleased with it. The color is kind of a dusky green-gray, and the scent is modest but heavenly, and it's decorated with earrings and pins and strands of beads from my jewelry box. At the top is a tiny birchbark and sweetgrass canoe, which an Ojibway artist gave to Paul last summer as a thank-you present for being her son's camp counselor. Inside the canoe (though he he doesn't show up in this bad photo) is a Santa pin I got for Christmas when I was six. Through the doorway behind the tree you can get a glimpse of the doll's kitchen. Really, you're getting more than a glimpse. That's practically the whole kitchen.

Here's another bad photo for you. I don't know why all my pictures list to the left today. Anyway, this is the view from the living room into the bedroom. At the front is a little hallway, just big enough for a bookcase on either side. On the floor is a catnip rat, arranged artistically by Ruckus. Beyond is the bed (our bedframe in Harmony was a built-in, so we're currently sleeping on the floor like college students). Beyond that, in front of the radiator, is my stand-up desk. And beyond the window is the street, the park, and the sea. So as I type, I'm also looking outside at a very cold woman looking at her watch and waiting for the bus. Behind her is a long sledding hill that no one is using because the temperature is below zero and all the children had to go to school anyway. At the bottom of the hill is a scrim of bare trees, and then a crackle of salty ice floating on the margin of the blue bay.

The bus still hasn't arrived. The woman is still cold.

But here's a better picture of Santa in his canoe . . . as long as you don't mind the blur. It's a good thing I went into writing instead of photography.