Welcome Winter

Today is the first official day of Winter despite the frigid temps we have been having.  It is also the Winter Solstice and the shortest day of the year, it will be dark by 5pm here.  In celebration I finally got my Winter baskets together. 

Some people take their hanging baskets down, some leave them bare, and some people more lazily leave the dead plants in them until Spring (I unfortunately was one of those people until yesterday).  We like to put greenery into ours, its wintry and spruces up outdoor containers.  Last year the weekend of Thanksgiving we went around cutting all sorts of different evergreens and berry branches to arrange.  This year in an attempt to just get them done before it was too late I cut many branches from one tree.  We got a little snow last night which completes the look!