It is a strangely mild December. No snow yet, but several foggy pre-dawns have brushed on beautiful hoar frost. 
Though I may have, I don’t remember ever seeing hoar frost before I moved up here on the hill. Ephemeral, magical, it reminds me of what were my favorite Christmas cards as a child, the ones with sparkly snow scenes, where you can feel the glitter as you run your fingers over.
Though I miss the snow I am glad for the ease of driving, as I tear around eight counties in three states, delivering les collines but also back to school for the winter term, down in the hills of Connecticut. I have the great good fortune to be teaching in an all-boys school– no irony here! Whatever the challenges of energy levels and attention– and I realize this is a gross generalization– boys are pretty much what you see is what you get, and I love them for this.
Of course, I miss my own so much, and at this time of year especially feel the sorrowful edge of his absence all the more acutely. All our Christmases together, the plays, the cookies, the tree decorating and travel to family, melted like hoar frost in the light of day, to live now only in the fog of memory. And sometimes, I have to ask if it was all a dream.
Drowning myself in work is my only response and best distraction for now. Joy and comic relief in the form of my other boys, including the ever adorable Spinoni Nocci and Clarence, here pointing a squirrel– brightly lit, on the edge of the shaded area between their heads– through a window and from the second floor. 
The purity of their beings inspires and comforts when all seems an utter mess, chaos in a hand basket.
Grace, I think they call it.