Sometimes it seems to me that sunsets and sunrises are more pretty in the winter than at any other time of the year.  And as I just mentioned to a friend the other day, just when you think that you've seen every colour and design possible in the sky, God shows you a beautiful new creation.
    Here are two sunset pictures I got from the 18th:

Two sunrise pictures from the 19th:

And on that same day, a chickadee.  I think that chickadees are my favourite birds, and I especially love them in the winter when it's more common to see them flitting around looking for food, or just sitting on a branch all fluffed up like a little ball of tiny feathers.

This is the ice on our pond on the 24th.  It's not the greatest picture, but you can kind of see the frozen bubbles at different layers in the ice.  I've always found that neat.

Two more sunset pictures from the 25th (and I love it when the sun rays change colour like that):

playing this season for weeks now.  But our local public rink has extremely few public skate hours this year, so I figured I'd just skate on our own pond again this year, which works just fine.
    There were just a few problems.  Earlier, I think around the end of November/beginning of December 2023, there was a whole bunch of dust on the surface of the ice.  I didn't want to skate on the dust because I knew that would dull my skate blades.
    Finally, I think at the beginning of January, my brother came and told me that all the dust had blown off the ice.
    And then it got extremely cold, and nobody wants to skate outdoors when it's -40°C outside.  So there went another week.
    When it finally warmed up again, it had started snowing, and it kept snowing for several days.  (Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad it finally snowed!)  By the time it stopped snowing there was a foot or more of snow on the pond.
     It was starting to feel like there wouldn't be any chances at hockey this season.  But then on this past Tuesday morning (the 23rd), my brother stuck his head into my little office cubicle and said, "The dugout's cleared off and it's only -5°C.  Want to go skating?"
    Of course I wanted to go skating!
    After getting our skates out of the shed and leaving them in the porch to warm up a bit, we pulled out the hockey nets and hauled them out to the pond.  Then back to the house for the skates.
    Lace 'em up, grab the sticks, toss a puck onto the ice, and let's play!  That's another part of winter that I absolutely love - it's hockey season!  I'm pretty convinced that hockey is the best sport ever invented.
    On Wednesday afternoon, we were out there again.  I'd gone out by myself, but when I came back, I opened the porch door and there was my brother, jacket and mitts on, on his way out.  So I went back out with him and we played for a while. 
    I would have gone out on Thursday as well, but it got too warm that day.
    And then I headed to the ice again  yesterday.  I'd gone out with my brother, and we skated for a while before heading back.  But as we pulled up by the house on the quad, my sisters came out of the house with their skates.  So I went back out and played some hockey with them for a bit before it warmed up to the point where my skates were actually breaking through the ice in one or two places.
    But anyway, that's my hockey story for this week.  Now for the pictures.  On Wednesday, when I'd gone back to the house and run into my brother on his way out, I'm not sure how coffee came into the conversation, but he asked if I wanted some coffee.  I said yes, but I still had my skates on (my fingers and toes get cold really fast, and often when I put on my skates outside, so I've been putting my skates on in the house and then taking the quad out to the pond), so he said he would get the coffee for me.  I asked for a double-double, and he made one for me and brought the mug out the porch.  He also brought my camera, as I'd wanted to take pictures of that neat bubble ice.
    Back at the pond while waiting for him, I got an idea.  Coffee.  Skates.  Hockey stick.  Puck.  Skate blade-torn ice.  Perfect.
    Still waiting for my brother, I set all these things on the ice and took a few pictures.  Here's one with the skates, and one without.  Either way, I think these are perfectly Canadian pictures!

because I was trying not to slide forward any farther because I didn't want to knock my coffee over.  News flash: I knocked it over anyway.  But at least I got my picture (and I think I'd already drank half of it, so it wasn't a total loss) XD)
    What's your favourite part of winter?

Well, it took until January 5/6, but we finally got some snow!  Now it looks more like winter, and I'm very much enjoying it.
  First, I have three pictures from January 4th, before it snowed.

Four from the 5th.  The first three I took in the morning while the sun was coming up, and then the last one I took in the afternoon when the sun was shining directly on that pine tree.

And then on the 7th, a picture of the snow we finally got!

On the 8th, we had a female Pileated woodpecker on the bird feeder.

Snow-covered spruce trees on the 10th:

Sunset on the 11th:

Sunrise on the 13th, and then in the evening, the sun shining on the snow-capped fence railings.

Sunrise on the 14th.  A crazy little woodpecker . . . she should have stayed home that day  (We had quite a cold snap last week; temperatures in the -30s, and there were two or three days where for a time, we were down to -42 and -43°C).  And that night, the crescent moon.

And finally, the sunrise from this morning, beautiful as always!

...I've got fourteen pictures.  First three: Sunrise and sunset on Christmas day!

Sunrise on the 30th:

Rex being lazy on the 31st:

Sunset on January 1st, 2024:

Sunset on the 2nd:

And the hoarfrost this morning!  It seemed to be snowing a slight bit this morning, but it was very fine, very wet stuff, so it might have just been hoarfrost blowing off of the trees.

Instead of posting a "photo of the month" for December, I went through my photos and came up with some of the best (or more interesting) ones from each month - some that I haven't necessarily posted on here, so you'll see some new ones.  I've captioned each one with the date they were taken; the caption are at the bottom of each photo.
    And though this is a couple of days late, happy new year!