













I spent just over a week, from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day, in my favorite beach town on Earth, Stone Harbor, New Jersey. The sand-on-snow reminded me a lot of
Sylt, but thankfully there was a whole lot more sunlight to be had on the Mid-Atlantic coast than there was on the North Sea last winter -- in spite of 18 inches of snow the day after Christmas! Happily, after the blizzard the sky turned blue and stayed blue, so we got in plenty of walking on the beach, and even bike-riding toward the end of the week, once the streets were pretty clear. We also had the best (eco-friendliest!) Christmas tree yet, which was in fact our deck umbrella. Classy!