hey jud

This photo set covers everything from the time Mike and Leesee arrived until Peter and I left to come back to Boston. Somehow we missed getting any photos when we were at the Nutcracker, but otherwise all the holiday events are documented, including a Braintree visit, dinner and gifts when the rest of the family visited from Charlotte, and Christmas day breakfast with more gifts, along with a few other miscellaneous happenings during the holidays. One other conspicuous absence is the lack of any skiing photos, though we did plenty of that in the best conditions we've seen in some time. It was just too good to stop and take any pictures I guess.

Check back tomorrow for photos of the Christmas miracle, where a tree falls and only some of us hear it.

Sometime during the night before Christmas Eve, an 80' hemlock tree fell onto our deck, brushing down the side of the house, leaving some branches on the roof but not breaking any windows. Everyone had trouble going to sleep that night because of the noise of the wind. 50 - 60 mph gusts made sounds like a train coming up the hill from below. Maybe around 3:30 in the morning, according to Meg and Jason the house seemed to shudder a bit from an especially strong gust, and Ollie started crying. They went in to check on him but didn't turn on the light. All seemed to be well and he settled down again in about 10 minutes. At the other end of the house, Peter and I never heard anything at all. When we got up the next morning and went out to see Ollie, our first realization of what happened was when we saw the deck just beyond the sliding glass doors completely filled with hemlock branches. Even Jason hadn't realized what a close call Ollie had until he went in to get him up in the morning and saw branches on the low roof, and then the tree lying on the deck below Ollie's window. It's frightening to think of what might have happened had the tree been just a few feet closer. Photos make clear what was really a Christmas miracle.