island Christmas – Cantwell's Reef

My grandfather’s fiddle, which entertained my mother’s family on long winter nights on the South Dakota prairie, hangs behind my Christmas tree at Nuthatch Cabin. We’ll add ornaments to the tree when daughter Lillian arrives Christmas Eve.

IT’S ALL ABOUT LIGHT this week, starting with today, December 21. Happy winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and Happy almost-final-day of Hanukkah! Both have to do with winter light and what it means to us all.

With just me and Galley Cat in our cabin on this remote little island in the San Juans, life changes significantly when sunrise doesn’t come until almost 8 in the morning and the sky is inky black before 5.

Keeping the woodshed full is a challenge on short December days.

In mid-summer, 5 o’clock is happy hour on my sun-flooded deck. At this time of year when 5 comes around it means I’d better have made my daily trek to the mail shack already or else have my headlamp charged up.

With barely eight hours of daylight, for me it means less time for outdoor chores, and getting up earlier so I have time to split firewood; pick up fallen branches from the latest storm; go for a walk with Galley Cat.

For the resident feline, it means staying inside after 3 p.m. when dusk starts to descend. Having heard frequent owl hoots in recent months and coming eye-to-eye one late afternoon with a Great Horned Owl peering down from my roof, I keep Galley indoors in peak hunting hours. She’s just small enough that big raptors are a worry.

This December, all over Washington State, the dark days have been even tougher in the face of fierce winds, drenching rains and floods. Mild temperatures in our mountains meant rain fell rather than snow, fueling rampaging rivers. On top of all that, nationwide political chaos continued to test our good nature.

Sunrise from Center Island on December 13: a break from the chaotic weather.

More about our winter daylight: My brother in Santa Fe was surprised when I texted him a photo of a spectacular sunrise I witnessed from our Center Island dock as I awaited a water taxi pickup last weekend during a welcome respite from the storms. He was mystified that the photo was taken at 7:58 a.m., which to him seemed quite late for sunrise. The simple explanation: Center Island is at 48.49 degrees north latitude, while Santa Fe, 1,177 miles to south, is at 35.69 degrees. The hours of daylight have to do with the tilt of the earth in its revolutions around the sun this time of year. In winter the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun, so the sun follows a lower, shorter arc across the sky at northern latitudes and sets much earlier than at lower latitudes.

Mild December temperatures mean I still have fuchsias blooming on my deck.

A quick look at the numbers: On today’s winter solstice, Center Island is milking what it can from the sun with 8 hours and 20 minutes of daylight. Santa Fe is enjoying 9 hours and 40 minutes.

Before we Center Islanders cry in our cocoa, we should consider the plight of neighbors to the north. If I lived in Anchorage (61.2 degrees north), I’d get out in daylight for just 5 hours and 28 minutes today. The watery winter sun didn’t peek over the horizon there until 10:14 this morning. That’s just SAD (which happens to be the apt acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder).

All this came to mind as I put up a 7-foot Noble fir and festooned it with lights in Nuthatch Cabin this week. Whether or not you celebrate the birth of Christ, decking an evergreen with lights is simple self-defense against the dark of December, my brother and I agreed.

How’d that custom start? A quick Google search says:

Christmas trees originated from ancient pagan winter-solstice celebrations using evergreens to symbolize life, evolving into a German Protestant tradition in the 16th century in which trees were decorated with apples and candles, famously popularized globally by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the 1840s, spreading from German immigrants to America and beyond as a beloved Christmas symbol.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. When a small group of devout Jews defeated an army of oppressors in the 2nd century BCE, a day’s worth of lighting oil miraculously lasted eight days for the victors. With the lighting of candles for eight nights, the modern holiday celebrates spiritual triumph, the victory of light over darkness, and the endurance of faith.

Tomorrow our days start getting longer. What a relief. In these trying times, we could all use another victory of light over darkness.

A cheery bonfire warms visitors to Sunnyfield Farm’s Little Winter Market on Lopez Island this weekend before Christmas.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ROCK, where my holidays have been rocking and rolling, including today’s festive visit to Lopez Island’s Little Winter Market, held in the goat barn at Sunnyfield Farm on Fisherman Bay Road.

This month has been a whirlwind of holiday celebration and preparation, with more socializing than I often get in several months of lonely winter Sundays.

My new partner, Carol Z., and I have spent this week on our own at our respective homes for the first time in a while, which has just convinced me all the more that we belong together.

Admittedly, much of my most recent island socializing has been with the next-door neighbors, John (the jovial Mad Birder) and the baker extraordinaire who is also his wife, Carol F. (I now have four Carols in the contact list on my phone.)

Lillian and partner, Chris, in yuletide sweatermania.

But earlier in the month I headed south for the annual Burns Family holiday potluck at the home of sister- and brother-in-law Sarah and Danny. No Tater Tot Casseroles there; this potluck featured, among many other things, deliciously grilled venison (which, hmmm, might give Santa cause to count heads Sunday night) and included a Christmas sweater contest. A dash to Goodwill had me outfitted in a yule sweater of poor taste and tackiness, but I won no prize. Nor did honors go to daughter Lillian’s entry, with Santa riding a unicorn in outer space. (Can you believe she got skunked?) Nephew Patrick and his partner Heather, in sweaters with flashing lights sewn into them, walked home with the prize. Tech triumphs over tacky.

Carol Z. and I celebrated Hanukkah with our friends Daniel and Jean in Olympia, enjoying a splendid lunch of Daniel’s chanterelle omelets and homemade latkes and Jean’s Moroccan carrots, among other treats. With a stunning view of a wintry Mount Rainier, we all went for a delightful hike along waterfront and through woods with Carol’s dog, Chevy, who looks like a walking, woofing reincarnation of my family’s childhood pooch, Skippy.

Your faithful correspondent and Carol Z. with Chevy dog on the Olympia waterfront at Hanukkah.

The Mad Birder and Carol joined me for a progressive (two-cabin) Solstice Celebration this past Thursday, with winter fruits and complementary cheeses at the Nuthatch, where I read Robert Frost’s “An Old Man’s Winter Night” and we sipped apple jack and a hearty red wine. At their place, the poet was Mary Oliver, with Carol reading “White-Eyes” and M.B. giving a heartfelt rendition of “First Snow.” They also served salad, seedy sourdough bread, M.B.’s special Manhattan clam chowder (with a happy lip-tingling touch of cayenne) and Carol’s chocolate cake topped with cream cheese and shaved coconut. Good wine flowed. Christmas tunes played. Nobody suffered.

At the solstice, neighbor John, the Mad Birder, lights candles to honor lost loved ones.

Today, M.B. and Carol kindly gave me a lift in their runabout, Brazen, to Lopez Island, where they planned a winter hike while I tended to necessary business, disposing of trash and recycling at the headquarters of the Lopez Island Solid Waste Disposal District (motto: “Not Your Average Dump”).

Along the way, however, a roadside sandwich board alerted me to the Little Winter Market, happening this day at the goat farm. I’d been to it once before, a few years ago, and knew it for a treat. I had to pull over.

As before, the Entermann family, stewards of the farm and its batch of bearded bleaters, had transformed their little open-air barn into a festive winter bazaar. I phoned to alert Carol and John, who arranged to meet me there later.

Andre Entermann hawks his goat cheese at the Little Winter Market at his Lopez Island farm.

From the hayloft, a trio of musicians played carols. Under the open sky a blazing bonfire warmed island neighbors bundled in mufflers and parkas this chilly December day. From a scattering of stands, vendors offered hot coffee drinks, fresh Lopez oysters, canned salmon, and locally grown steaks and chops. I bought fresh garlic-and-chive goat cheese and some goat-milk soaps from the farmer, Andre Entermann, who shared secrets of how he makes goat-milk caramel. You could have cut the bonhomie with a cheese knife.

Chocolate mousse and shortbread stars await visitors to the Nuthatch.

Back at the Nuthatch, the gifts are wrapped. The tree is up. This afternoon I baked shortbread and whipped up a batch of chocolate mousse, which is chilling overnight in the fridge. (I only incinerated the chocolate in the microwave once before getting a second batch right.) Tomorrow, daughter Lillian and our friend, Lux, who recently bought and moved aboard our old sailboat, arrive to spend Christmas with me. On Boxing Day, the 26th, I head south to spend Carol Z’s birthday with her at a beach house on the coast.

Like I’ve said before, even if he lives on an isolated rock, no man is lonely with neighbors, family and loved ones like these. I hope you revel in such warmth this holiday.