Susan Senator

Creature Comforts — because it snowed last night and so it now feels like comfort time.
1) The soft, fluffy white peds I took from my Mom’s drawer. Good to sleep in, too.
2) 3-carb hot chocollate from Swiss Miss. The first tastes of wet, lumpy powder taste really good. This is not a brown crayon dipped in water.
3) Candles in my fireplace. Less hassle than lighting a fire, little flames can cheer, too.
4) Falling asleep against Ned on the couch while we watch an Old Simpson’s episode on the Tivo with Ben; I can hear his laughter, low and rumbling, against my ear.
5) A week of nothing nudgy planned but meeting friends, writing, holiday shopping, making Chanukah nights special.
6) Decorating for Chanukah: get out the choo-choo train menorah, the cheap brass one we bought at the Penn Bookstore when we were first married, the ceramic one little Max made where the holes are so tiny we use birthday candles, the silver one I splurged on, the lightbulb one like Mom and Dad’s that goes in the front window. Plug in all my Casbah lights leftover from my birthday party. Drape flashy paper dreidl from my porch light.
7) Making latkes from scratch. Must buy taters today. And applesauce, that’s how Max likes them.
8) Assembling wrapping paper, tape, scissors, and presents and having a wrap session, the excitement over the piles growing.
9) The feeling of having finished the raking, (yesterday!) in time for the first snow (last night!)
10) The look of the first snow from within a warm house.