Goodbye 2023

Whether it’s an attempt to make up for all the posts that I’ve missed in 2023 or just a desire to round out the year… this is it… the last post of 2023.

I won’t be overly dramatic or contemplative (there’ve been a lot of “look back” posts in the past month) but it’s been a relaxing week and I’ll share the last few things of this year as the clock ticks down to 2024.

Christmas Day

We had a relaxed morning… Gone are the days of getting up at 7am, 8am or 9am… I think we started opening gifts somewhere around 10am. Liz, of course, was up earlier, doing as moms do… making sure there was lots to eat.

We read the Christmas story and a devotional before taking turns opening our stockings. That way we each got to enjoy each other’s reactions. We then moved on to the other gifts and were then set to enjoy our day… nibbling here & there.

The turkey was done about 1-1.5h earlier than expected (a turkey-dinner hostess’ nightmare) but we survived and dinner was brilliant.

The day’s nibblings included my grandmother’s fruitcake that Liz did a smashing job at recreating. Thankfully, Nan did fruitcake without nuts (heaven’s be praised!). It’s amazing how smells and tastes can transport you back in time.

The fire may seem like an odd photo to include, but it was a fun little element to one of the gifts. We got some new towels for Christmas, but they came with a condition… 4 new ones came in, so 4 old ones needed to go… by fire: anything with tears or rips was a candidate. We found some and set about enjoying a good laugh around a quick campfire after dark.

Pruning the Apple Tree

We LOVE our two apple trees. They were both planted by our nearly 90-year old neighbour, who grafted them an planted them when he was just a boy and the land belonged to his father.

However, the apples come at a price… every other year, we prune one of the trees. This serves a dual purpose:

There’s less of a chance that we’ll be completely inundated with apples. One tree is allowed to bear freely while the other recovers from the year’s pruning.
It allows the trees to rejuvenate and remain a manageable size. If we didn’t … there’s be no way to reach the apples up top.

The other way the trees give back is that, thanks to a branch mulcher, cleanup is easily done without having to make a trip to the recycling yard to get ride of the branches. I run them through the branch shredder and …. voilà …, mulch for the garden. The soil in our raised beds has improved dramatically and it helps retain moisture in the ground around roses & smaller fruit trees.

Looking ahead

Timo works today, then early tomorrow morning we’ll be heading down for a New Year’s Eve service in Bordeaux with the Majdlings. The youth will be at church until the wee hours, but I suspect that we will have a slightly earlier night.

Either way… it’ll be a good way to cap off what has another year where we’ve seen God’s hand at work.