How is it December?! Instants of joy have been piling up, and are sprinkled all over like the pine needles I find in the kitchen. As usual, we were too busy enjoying to hold up a camera in the moment and so I go back and pick each one up and write it to relive.

Having family around our family’s table for the first time was special this Thanksgiving, favourite of all beloved holidays. We took turns carving the turkey and then gathered around candles with plates of jewel-toned autumn bounty. I filled my plate with my usual oversized portion of sweet potatoes and even restrained from scooping off extra toasted marshmallows.

Here we are, settled, with family around our table.

We were swept into the Christmas spirit Thanksgiving evening with a walk along Fifth Avenue. Although extravagant, I love the idea that someone spends the whole year planning intricate window art---displays sculptured entirely of shell or strips of paper. And then we passed under the red and aqua sign for Radio City and spent a delighting time at the Christmas show chocked with can-cans and real camels and Christmas hoopla. And the best part was sharing laughter with my husband.

Very few pine needles have been winking off the new tree that welcomes everything in our place with glee. We spent Friday searching for trimmings and Saturday with sap-and-sparkle-covered hands as we gave our apartment its first tree and ornamented it, this Christmas Tree II of our marriedness. Sinatra and eggnog both made appearances in the hours-long decorating party in which we hung exactly 78 balls and 40 icicles. The tree, I daresay, is lovely, and we have been musing that it might be the Platonic form of the perfect tree. It actually is so perfect it looks unreal.

I love that holding an ornament can bring back memories of siena-clay buildings in San Gimignano, of wood-smoke laden markets in Prague, of our cheery flat (bless its heart) in Scotland, of that excitable Christmas when I was wearing a dazzling new ring and meeting new family. I love that the tree represents our family, and I love that Walk and I are our own family.

So here we sit in the evening shadows of fir and colored twinkle, the scent of evergreen, with slippers waiting by the door. We are remembering our wee tree of last year, which was potted and took 10 minutes to decorate, and we are smiling at the American change which brought 9 feet of tree and cups of real eggnog.

It's that time, that wonderful time, of this wonderful year!

It's that delicious sunny cold in New York today----Happy December!