Our Christmas decorations are put away for the year. The only reminder of the holidays are twinkling white lights on the front stair rail and my new Christmas mugs that I’m not yet ready to yield to storage. My fingers fit perfectly in the swoop of their scrolled handles. The mugs are larger than I usually like, but I love the way they feel when I cup my hands around them for warmth: they curve into the exact right shape, and the glazed porcelain is smooth against the skin of my palms. I find myself going for these mugs every time I make coffee or tea; they bring me delight in how cozy they make me feel. I’m not giving them up yet, even though they are painted with Night Before Christmas scenes, with Santa and reindeers, and it is now January 5.

I’ve got a fire laid in the fireplace. We’re expecting a winter storm tonight. Snow should start falling this afternoon, blustery and frigid, before it turns to sleet and ice. We had a load of firewood delivered in early December. I stacked half of it for my exercise the day it came, and Brian stacked the other half. I brought some in the other day to give it some time in the dry heated air of the house. It’s not as seasoned as our previous firewood. We have to start a fire with old wood, then add the new wood once it’s hot. I don’t know what I’ll do when we’re out of old wood; the new wood is hard to get going even when the fire is already hot. I guess we’ll have to use more kindling.

I’m happy about winter, even though the holidays are over. The holidays used to be the only redeeming quality of the season, and once Christmas was done, I was ready for spring. But I’ve come to love the invigorating air and the coziness of being indoors with books and blankets and steaming cups of coffee, of soups and root vegetables, of the quiet of a resting world.

Also, the bears should be hibernating now, and I can give a bird feeder a go again. I’ve been waiting for winter to arrive for this reason. In recent years, bears have discovered the bird feeder hung in our oak tree; the tree is on a slope, and the feeder hung low enough for me to reach it, which means bears could reach it, too. They’ve mauled three feeders, and I gave up last spring after the third.

This has given me many months to think of a solution. I miss watching the birds. My first and simplest solution was to just wait until winter. Winter is my favorite season for watching birds anyway. There’s nothing else going on outside; all the plants in my garden, all the cute bunnies, chipmunks, and squirrels, all the buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies — they’re all tucked away, out of sight, resting. But the cardinals will come in their brilliant red coats, bright as berries against the bleak greys and whites of winter. Tufted titmice will come, and finches, and black and white woodpeckers with splashes of scarlet on their breasts and crests.

I think I’ve got a longer-term solution now, too, beyond just waiting for winter. I’ll try a bird feeder on the corner of our back porch, which is up a flight of stairs from ground level. I should be able to get a hanger that clamps to the rail. This will put the feeder high enough that bears can’t reach it when they come out of hibernation. And it will be even better than hanging from the tree because it will be closer to where I can see it, and it won’t be obscured by greenery when the oak leafs out in spring. The biggest unknown is this: will a bear climb the stairs to get to it? I guess we will find out.