Sunrise through the east windows. Moonset through the west.

The darkened air is still, cold, with a thin taste of sea.

Today the wild rumpus begins. Tom will be making mountains of homemade ravioli for Christmas Eve dinner. I will be vacuuming, tidying, cleaning bathrooms, washing down extra tables and chairs, prepping a pie. Our three kids will breeze in from their Massachusetts jaunt. My parents will appear, wan and frazzled from their first long drive since my dad's illness. My sister's family will tumble, long-legged and sinus-infected, from their overpacked car. We'll get dressed up in our holiday finery and troop down to the pier for a giant fish dinner.

For the moment, though, the little house is exceedingly peaceful, and I have time to share this helpful [?] definition with you:

Edmund Burke, in his famous essay on the sublime (1757) . . . , lists the qualities of the sublime as Astonishment, Terror, Obscurity, Power, Privation (Vacuity, Darkness, Solitude and Science), Vastness, Infinity, Succession and Uniformity, Magnificence, Light, Colour, Magnitude in Building and Difficulty. (from Johnson's The Birth of the Modern)

I guess that covers it.