While I may have writing news in the near future, and Ive been doing things with my photography now (see the website, or my FlickR site), this e-mail is not about any of those things. Its about my annual Christmas story. I hope you enjoy.

I hope youre all doing well and that the New Year will be fantastic.

~~~~~~~~~~

One snowflake said to another, I call dibs on that house.

And indeed, it was a marvelous house, the perfect size, with exactly the right amount of lawn and porch and roof, and not a single speck of snow resting upon it. Smoke drifted from the chimney, children laughed and played inside, someone sipped hot chocolate. A snowflake can sense all these things, can hear the songs and wishes, sometimes even the prayers when its appropriate for a snowflake to hear.

The other snowflake said, But I want that one. And then it dove.

Snowflakes love to drift. They love to float and flutter and flit. Theyre pre-eminent dancers, from whom mankind originally learned rhythm. (Yes, of course, there are raindrops who insist they were more responsible, but this time of year, no one takes the raindrops seriously.) Snowflakes dont generally move with all that much speed.

The first snowflake, determined to make that house its own, also dove, and the race was on.

Snowflakes, generally, dont gather in large audience to watch a race, and rarely do they support a favorite. Rather, they join the fray, they jostle for the first spot, they get caught up in the furious flurry. Only one can win. Only one can claim being first on that perfect house with its perfect inhabitants.

The winner reached the chimney first. First is important. First makes the house yours, if youre a snowflake.

The snowflake danced and jigged and laughed at its brothers and sisters, but they couldnt stop. By the dozen, the hundred, the thousand, other snowflakes fell upon the rooftop, the porch, the lawn, and the two who had begun the race.

Ah, well, the first snowflake said, as though such words were not inevitable, theres plenty of room for all!

Later in the night, as the perfect home-dwellers slept in their perfect rooms, while even the first two snowflakes rested peacefully, when nothing could be seen of the lawn or the porch or the rooftop but a white blanket of snow, another snowflake, falling high above, said to another, I want that house.

Its a good house, the other snowflake agreed. It is getting rather crowded, though.

Thats okay. Theres plenty of room. They joined the piles, the drifts, and the heaps.

By dawn, Christmas morning, a million snowflakes, united in sparkling celebration, had settled quite comfortably and, mostly, fallen into slumber.

Before running downstairs to see what Santa mightve brought, the children pressed their faces to their bedroom windows, and one said, quite smugly, I told you Santa would bring us a white Christmas.

Atop the chimney, two of the one million snowflakes giggled quietly.

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