Merry Christmas from the Yeti of Amherst . . . kind of like the Belle of Amherst: ironic and reclusive, prone to messing with expectations.

The Yeti is a new neighbor who resides a couple of houses down from my in-laws'. I don't think I've ever seen a better chainsaw carving. It's not an art I'm generally attracted to, but this Yeti is very handsome. And, as you see, quite festive.

* * *

As usual, I'm the only one awake around here at this hour. So I'm saying Merry Christmas to the tree silhouettes outside the window and to the reheated coffee in the cup beside me, and to you. I hope your day is silly and safe and peaceable, that you get a chance to step outside and breathe in a lungful of sharp wind, that you will wrap your arms around a person or animal or chunk of granite you love.

The Oxen

Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.