Rudi and I are back home after a lovely, but all-too-short, six-day stay in Connecticut. We ate all manner of delicious things. We caught up on sleep. We gave and received an array of glittery gifts. And we laughed with family we see all too little of. I’d say it was a good Christmas.

Here are three moments of beauty snapped in the final week of the year:

1. Snow starts falling around 9:30 on Boxing Day morning and doesn’t stop until the following afternoon, leaving roughly eight inches of fluff on the ground for the fierce wind to blow about for another day. It makes the northern Connecticut farmland nearby look especially Christmassy.

2. A rafter of more than sixty turkeys stop by after the storm subsided to take advantage of the berries on my mother’s bushes and my father’s full bird feeders. While most of the birds leave via the back property line, five of them are startled into ungainly flight, eventually landing in the trees.

3. This time of year is good for catching up with old friends. Cards roll in with photos of friends’ and relatives’ children and notes from those we haven’t heard from in a while. In reply to a text message requesting an address update, a former student announces he’s engaged and says he’ll call soon with an update. And although the weather prevents Karen and me from getting together while I’m up north, we do get the chance to chat on the phone three days in a row, which is absolutely lovely and something we don’t do enough of anymore.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?