Many years ago my wife Lynn and I devised our own version of a Christmas tradition. We celebrate with this simple ritual based on the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song and concept: one gift per day, beginning on December 25 (or sometimes the eve of 12.24.xx), for twelve days in a row.

Now 12 presents may seem extravagant, but the gifts are often more like stocking stuffers than fancy or expensive things. Gift card for movie tickets, dinner at a local restaurant, replacement for a dish broken in the past year – it’s all good.

This year on the Fourth Day (yesterday) Lynn gave me three alligator clips for displaying photos (two of them shown below). Her instructions were to sift through old photos and find a significant image or 3, and display those as I see fit to commemorate a special moment, a past achievement, a vacation, a skill…. whatever I feel that should be recognized.

In this spirit, I’m posting here two images, exact dates unknown, but still characteristic of bygone days. One shows Lynn rock climbing in Colorado in the mid 1990s. The other picture shows two friends and I -Sean (middle) and John (right) atop some ridge in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. The picture was probably taken by a student on our 5-week backcountry project during Winter Term at the College of Idaho.

By posting this initial picture, I’m committing to continue posting additional images across the remaining seven days of Christmas 2024. If there is a unifying theme, I think it will be pictures of nature or snapshots taken in natural settings.

Cheers,

Timmo Dec 29, 2024 (5th Day)

Earn your turns – summer and winter scenes in the Sawtooth Mountains (ID) sometime between ~2000-2005. Ride or climb up, get rewarded with a hell of a ride down. Posted on Day 6 of Christmas, December 30, 2024. Below: Mostly smallish creatures in Idaho, (except wind-shaped tree along the Kona coast: Big Island > next-to-bottom right).