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Snow has blanketed Duluth or maybe I should say blitzed with 21 inches by noon on Christmas Day. It snowed followed by rain, followed by snow. The weather service reported wind gusts over 50 mph Friday. The Aerial Lift Bridge reported sustained winds of 40 to 50 mph Friday morning.


As snow has covered much of the Upper Midwest. Many  people were stuck inside their homes on Christmas, which is a good place to be stuck. This photo was taken in East Grand Forks, Minn.

Merry Christmas!

The fifth and last candle of the advent wreath was lit last night. It represents the Christ child and the light he brought to the world.

The Advent Wreath (from about.com)

The Advent wreath is a circular garland of evergreen branches representing eternity. On that wreath, five candles are typically arranged. During the season of Advent one candle on the wreath is lit each Sunday as a part of the Advent services. Each candle represents an aspect of the spiritual preparation for the coming of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Candles

Set on the branches of the wreath are four candles: three purple candles and one pink candle. In the center of the wreath sits a white candle. As a whole, these candles represent the coming of the light of Christ into the world.

Read the link here.

The wind was up on Thursday. The sprays from the waves created ice-covered rocks. A couple seconds after I took this shot I slipped a fell.  The photo right after this has spray from the waves. As I turned to leave I slipped. My hand took the brunk of the fall for the rest of my body....but it took it hard, is all bruised up. The lens of my camera did not survive.

(For my foreign readers: I thought brunk was a word, but I can't find the definition for it.) My hand broke the fall and probably saved me from hurting myself much worse. At the time I knew it hurt, but I didn't think it hurt that much. Hours later as I was driving I found I had hard time concentrating. I had to pull my car over to the side of the road to take a rest and then stop my Christmas journey early to stay in a hotel to recoup my energy.

 The things photographers will do to get a good shot, and the dangers that don't see in the processes of doing it!

The weather was actually about 27 degrees fahrenheit. A storm is brewing up.

Today I was downtown on Second Street when I noticed this ship gracefully sliding into the canal. It was odd because this particular area of town is not really too pretty. The Owl's Club on the left is a private club with most of the windows covered. The next street over is probably one of the blocks in Duluth with the worse reputations. If you look closely you can see the "Wasbasha Bookstore" sign over this "adult" establishment. I am not sure what is in the building to the left, but it looks boarded up. And the huge pole to the right holds up a billboard. Yet int the middle of that my eyes were delighted by this site of this ship gracefully slipping into the Duluth harbor.

Getting outside to get a photo before it gets dark is a real challenge in Duluth in the winter.  I decided to place this photo because you can see the time digitally displayed. It is only 3:30 p.m. Today, Dec. 21, is the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year. We only had 8 hours and 32 minutes of daylight today.

This church is on Central Hillsde.  The big building on the right is St. Mary's Hospital.

Here is some information about St. Mary Star of the Sea take from:
Polish Churches of Duluth

III. St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish, Duluth, Minnesota
Most Poles decided not to farm when they arrived in Duluth in the early 1870's, but rather obtained jobs in the city because, either they did not have the money to buy property, or, it may have been their intention to save up enough while working to enable them to return to Poland and purchase a farm there. Or maybe they hated farming and desired to make their fortune in a city.

...

The 1880 census shows that there were about 260 foreign-born or foreign-mixed Poles in the city. In 1881, tired of commuting up to Gnesen for church festivities, baptism, marriages, funerals, 100-140 Polish families formed a local branch of the St. Stanislaus Kostka Society, a Polish-American fraternal organization, and bought two lots and in 1883, built the first St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish in downtown Duluth. The building cost $4,200 and was dedicated in November, 1883.

Read more here at Polish Churches of Duluth

Green Pastures Dairy is a 30 minute drive from Duluth. It is located outside of Carlton, Mn.

Need I say more?

An 89-foot high outdoor sculpture adjacent to the Swenson Science Building makes reference to elements of Duluth's surrounding native American Ojibwe culture. The sculpture was designed by John David Mooney and is called "Wild Ricing Moon," and represents the traditional wild rice harvest. "Wild Ricing Moon" was completed on June 2, 2006. (From TripAtlas.com)