Christmas tea with O & C!

I had the most ‘extra ordinarily’ nice day. I know that could be one word but somehow the day was so pleasant that it cries out to be two.

I have two best friends. One I met when I was 5 years old, 55 years ago, and the other is a relative newby, we met her when we were 10. The three of us get together once a month for lunch at one of our homes to ensure that we make at least that effort to set aside some time for each other in our busy days. It is too easy to put everything else first because you know your friendship is solid. So we began this monthly get together and today was our day for December. First we went to the nativity festival, which was pretty and sparkly and hushed in tone. I have now gone twice but doubt I will attend again. It isn’t my church, indeed I don’t have one, and such organized religion is difficult for me to relax in the midst of. I do love to visit Catholic churches when services are not being held, St. James in particular, as I find they are large enough to become lost in so my thoughts are not intruded upon by a sense of religious practice that I do not adhere to or know much about. That may sound ridiculous to say of a Catholic church but the architecture draws me in and the art speaks to me of love and forgiveness and I find comfort there.

After the nativity, we drove east towards Mt. Si and the Salish Lodge for their Christmas tea. The scones were lovely, the tea sandwiches were delicate, the muffins and tea were wonderful and the Douglas fir fire spit and popped and crackled nearby. There were many beeswax candles lit and honey infused butter; there were handmade chocolates caramels flavored with rosemary. This was all wonderful but it was Snoqualmie Falls itself that kept calling me outside while my friends chatted.

The falls were spectacular! They were iced over, sharp edged, shadowed and craggy, noisy with the snapping of branches succumbing to the weight of ice in concert with the wind. The ferns and native Rhodies leaves were sunken and desiccated, hanging as is their defense against the cold, some covered with a thick white clumsy type of ice layered on by the mist ever swirling up and settling on them from the falls below. The sun glinting off the iced edges of leaves and railings turned the place into a wonderland of prismatic peeps of color. If you looked directly at the ice the red and yellow and green receded but from the corner of my eyes it was ablaze.

We had a window table in just the perfect position to see the water tumble over the jagged ice ledges, rocks and fallen trees frozen in time and place until some future thaw. Add to that some free hot chocolate outside with a bowl of real whipped cream and frosted shortbread cookies there for the taking and it was no wonder I left my companions repeatedly to explore outside, finding some lovely people wanting to chat and share the wonder of this season. It was quite cold, 22 degrees F but the breeze was fairly gentle and I wouldn’t have minded if it were otherwise, it was not a spoilable day!

And the fire inside was so hot! I had forgotten how warm, how alive a fire is that is not controlled by a gas jet licking at fake logs. The sound, the heat, the smell and the change in the color from a fairly uniform tan with dark brown bark to black lava like quilted squares of charcoal atop yellow white orange lines of deeper banked intensity. It was worth the drive just to reawaken that memory. And the entire day was shrouded in a mist that blew upwards from the falls and looked like fine snow.

I was so conscious of being happy, being so blessed and content and though it was a wonderful day, I often feel this way--only this one had (almost) ‘SNOW’!