One night it snowed softly & the trees were weighted with white; no wind stirred all day, & the next night it rained adding a coat of ice to the trees; yesterday the trees expanded against the grey windy sky like great misshapen feathers. Particularly did the poplars look like wet feathers.
In just a short time, the earth’s shadow would start to creep over it, towards a total eclipse—But I was much too sleepy to stay up to see it.
This morning I became virtuous and started my composition that I have to write for German. But it was hard to keep my mind fixed on it and I was glad when King called up, asking me to get Bill + Jim and come out in the afternoon to play cards.
Up at 6:30–out into the street at 10 min. to seven. It is still night–with just a faint glow over the east back of the harsh black buildings – over in the West the moon still shining brilliantly...
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tree – but then they’re such a nuisance!” ...“Why we’re going to have a tree” explained Frances “And we don’t want either Fred or Mama to know it...
Cold – Sunny – scarcely a trace of snow – to [unintelligible]-line for green vegetables and a ball point pen for Bertha – All day on decorations – setting up the tree etc.
Working hard at a doll-house for the children – I have not had such pure joy for a long time.
How good lit is to enjoy the proper pursuits at the proper age. How often do we hear of people longing to be a child at Christmas (and I too) but at thirty-seven it is the greatest and most fitting pleasure for me to provide Christmas joy for my youngsters.
I can nearly always, if I can get afield, find some Dandelions in December. Once I found them on New Year’s Day. I think of December as a leafless landscape, white sunlight, misty distances, & dandelions hugging the lichen-like turf.
The mind has a subconscious activity that borders on direct activity – though ostensibly we refuse to think of a certain thing, + apparently we have put it down, at any cessation of direct active thinking, the other returns, completely worked out in all its details, ‘tho at first it might have been but the germ of a thought.
Made a water-color of a memory from childhood – the night before Christmas...