Green parsley still pokes up through the dried leaves in our garden. Friends report budding forsythia. There's no snow to be seen on the ridgeline of Mount Megunticook as we roll into the two-week Christmas count-down. Our bottle of Grandpa Lundquist's Holiday Glogg waits, unopened. Our Christmas decorations are still tucked away in the shed.

But despite the askew weather, we did do some seasonal things today: we bought Christmas wrap and flannel PJs at Reny's, and then we watched a football game with a friend while enjoying moose stew next to a warm wood stove. As we left our friend's house, passing his many cords of stacked firewood, we picked up on a whiff of skunk in the cold air. Another living thing confused about what season it is. Our friend says the skunk lives under the woodshed. If the weather continues like this, that's going to be one tired skunk come spring, wishing it had had a few more days of hibernation.

Christmas lights through trees,
new flannel reindeer PJs...
and so it begins.