Flocked Christmas trees were quite the rage in the 1990s. Maybe they still are. But I was never a fan. The white foam sprayed on the needles  looked heavy, unnatural. It always looked to me as though I’d be cleaning up sticky bits of white paste for the entire next year. Real ‘flocking,’ the kind we awoke to this morning, is something else entirely.

Heavy fog combined with borderline freezing temperatures to paint every tree and bush with white ice crystals. The landscape was nothing short of enchanting. The White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobedid not do it better.

The sky remains flat and gray. A dome entirely without feature. As though someone took a large, white mixing bowl and turned it upside down over us. Since the sun has never poked through, the white crystals cling to many trees. We remain in a winter wonderland where nature shows how flocking is supposed to be done.