December in the hills is a sprig of berry bright holly, a spray of galax, and bouquet of mystic mistletoe. It is the raucous cry and flashing wing of a bluejay in a naked woodland and the thunder of grouse exploding from the brush.
It’s firelight and starlight. It’s the season of long nights. It’s winter talk around the hearth, the cry of a fiddle. It’s a lonesome tune – “On top of old Smoky, all covered with snow…”
It’s an old man with memories and a young man with dreams. It’s an old woman with snow in her hair and a young girl with stars in her eyes.
December is a time when the darkness deepens and the winter closes in.
It’s icy knuckles at the door and frost pictures on the windows. It’s an open world that invites the foot to roam and the eye to see. It’s a sky with the look of cold skim milk. It’s a country road at night with lantern light throwing golden splashes on the snow.
It’s a little church in the pines glowing with candlelight and happy voices singing once more old songs of Holy Night.
It’s the magic of awakening to a mountain world white with snow. It’s snow turning ragged balsams into giant tinsel cones and draping proud hemlocks in formal gowns. It’s clouds all ragged and wispy and weird. It’s the wind playing hide and seek along the fence rows and across the meadow and among the fireclad hills.
December is laughter and full hearts and the glad hubbub of company coming.
December in the hills is all these things and more.