How to Spend a December Afternoon

The snow is falling heavier now, and the wind is whipping it against the window pane. It's a damp early December snow, and it melts almost as soon as it is thrown against the warm glass, but it's beginning to pile up in the corners of the old wooden frame that has withstood winter's assaults in this old farmhouse for almost two centuries. I should have scraped and painted the window, and the whole house for that matter, this past summer and fall, but that's how it goes when you get old. My New England breeding trains me to prepare for the coming seasons, and they all need preparations, believe me. But at my age, you begin to think that maybe things are not as urgent as they originally seemed. Thus, there are cracks in the paint of the window, and the old wood is exposed to the harshness of New England's nastiest and most unforgiving season.
 There's no sense fretting about it now. I'm relaxing in my grandfather's rocking chair, trying to decide which book to start reading. I buy books in bunches, stack them in a corner shelf, and work my way through them at my leisure. I'm down to Stephen King's sequel to "The Shining" that recently came out, called "Dr. Sleep", or "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, which came out quite a while ago. I've seen the movie versions, all of them at least once, but never read the book, and this seems like a good time to give it a try.
 My dog is looking at his water bowl and back at me. This is how he controls his "master". Reluctantly, I rise up from my comfortable spot to walk across the room, away from the fireplace, with his bowl. He does not leave the hearth, just watches me with his big brown eyes as I progress down the hall to the cast iron hand pump that I watched my grandmother use when I was a little boy. The pump makes a sloppy "sachugg!" sound as it brings the ice cold water up from the ground, as clean and clear as a mountain stream. I bring it to the faithful hound, who waits for it with the patience of one who knows he is loved and will be this way forever.
 Since I'm up, I figure it's a good time to place another log on the fire. I choose a good-looking piece of maple, as dry as an old bone, and tuck it gently between the remains of two oak logs that have kept my dog and me toasty warm for a good long while. My rocker awaits. The afternoon sun is fading, and I choose my book. "A Christmas Carol" will keep me company 'til suppertime.