Three weeks ago our daughter Bea flew home. As she packs to return to school, I try to recall where the time has gone. The day after she arrived, we told stories at the Black Diamond History Museum for their Hometown Christmas.
The locals were very friendly! 
Black Diamond teems with local history: we found some of it for sale in a great Antique Store next to the museum.
We were treated to the best pizza in the valley at Black Diamond Pizza and Deli. The owner, Mike, told us he was passing through on a trip from Wisconsin, saw the building, originally built as a bank in 1915, and fell in love. The rest is history.
In the days that followed we enjoyed many winter walks, like this one at Green Lake.
They often entail impromptu birdwatching.
We celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas at our house.
But we love sparkle all year long, and welcome any excuse to bring more light into our lives.
More cookies too. There was a flurry of baking…
…for both holidays.
.
Then we drove out of the city…
…to find our tree.
We got a gooder!
This is how you dress for a Northwest Christmas.
We hosted parties for Bea’s NaNoWriMo pals, and the Dungeons and Dragons set. 
We visited friends……and had friends over to play.
On Christmas Eve we broke bread and made joyful music with family and friends.
On Christmas morning some lucky ducks found cool new jammies under the tree.
Very fitting, as we rang in the New Year with a sci-fi party. Our old friend Sargon served as Master of Ceremonies.
Cap’n Tommy wore gold. Rick and Sue were Red Shirts–those ill-fated crewmen doomed to die violent and expected deaths before the first commercial break of each Star Trek episode. Rick painted His ‘n’ Her phaser burns on the front of his shirt and the back of Sue’s. 
Rick and Dorota were smashing as Effie Trinket and Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games.
We came as…
Zaphod from Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, T’Pau the Queen Bitch of Vulcan from Classic Trek episode Amok Time, and Doc Brown from Back to the Future. When Back to the Future was made in 1985, the distant future to which Doc travels is set in the year 2015! Yikes! If you think three weeks goes fast, see how fast three decades will sneak up on you.
I thought about that as we toasted the New Year with the traditional Boston Cooler.
Here’s a toast to you.
May the New Year bring you twice the warmth, wisdom, joy, and sparkle!
But don’t wait for the future to come to you. Carpe Futurum, guys, before it carpes you!
All words and images copyright Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo Challenge: New.
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Travel Theme: Sparkly.
The whole town turns out for Gallery Walk. Every shop and gallery in town serves refreshments and features local artists. People come out in droves, wearing their sequins and snowboots. 
I popped over to Annie Kaill’s and saw my sister’s painting, Holiday House, in the front window of the shop. This festive painting was on loan to the gallery from its owners. Someone I talked to said he overheard people praising the painting in St. Petersberg! My favorite art tells a story, and this one tells a story I know. Constance painted it as a gift for her neighbors Jeff and Terry. Look closely and you can see Jeff in his brown overalls on a ladder, putting up his Christmas lights. 
Jeff is the kind of neighbor every neighborhood wants and needs, but few are fortunate enough to have. When he mows his own lawn, he also cuts the grass of an elderly neighbor. If Constance comes home and finds her driveway shoveled, she can guess who did it. Constance met him for the first time decades ago, when she bought a sandbox for her kids out in the valley and it wouldn’t fit in her car. She recognized him and, not knowing what else to do, asked a stranger’s help transporting it in his pickup. It was all set up in her yard when she got home. On our visit to Juneau last summer he heard that my son Eli was interested in fishing, and offered to take him out on his boat. Jeff helped Eli land a thirty pound king salmon. It was the highlight of his trip–all of ours, really, because eight of us ate fresh King salmon every night and there was still some to share with the neighbors. 
Every year Jeff spends the weeks preceding Christmas putting up tens of thousands of lights on his house, and at least a dozen Santas and snowmen. His electric bill spikes each December, but the people of Juneau count on him to put some serious twinkle into their holiday. 
Some people save their treasures for heaven, but I think there’s a twinkle light shining on his house for each kindness Jeff has paid to others. They add up, all those little lights, and push back the darkness for us all.
It was, of course, a costume affair…
Writing Between the Lines 