Kinds of Honey

This is the time when the evergreen takes center stage.

The rest of the year we are giddy about the spring buds opening into flower, the broad and flickering deciduous leaves, the fall colors. But in winter, the pines and firs and spruces get their fair due. While the other trees make striking silhouettes with their naked branches, the evergreens bring color onto our landscape. They make us look at them; we want to look at them. And even better when they catch snow, to sparkle under the light of sun or moon.

Such is our admiration of evergreens in winter that we invite them into our homes, feed them honey and water, bedeck them with ribbons and lights and jewels.

It is so nice to have their thick outline against the white sky, their weighty branches, their plucky needles. They remind us of life when so much else has died, browned, gone to sleep.