Both Nativity and Epiphany today

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This manger scene, with its gift-bringing three Wise Men (or Magi or kings) dressed in white, can be good to illustrate the two holy days being celebrated in Israel today. 
For Catholics and Protestants, today is the Feast of Epiphany. 
For the Orthodox, Copt, Syrian, and Ethiopian Christians, January 6-7 is the Feast of the Nativity. 

The creche welcomes visitors at the gate of the Monastery of St. Gerasimus, or in Arabic, Deir Hajla. 
Our busload from Meitar was there two weeks ago. 

If you enlarge the photo you can see the braided palm work, which is a specialty there.
The monastery is near Jericho,  not far from the baptism site Kasr al Yahud on the River Jordan.  
At an altitude of several hundred meters below sea level, the centuries-old St. Gerasimus is the lowest still-lived in monastery in the world, our guide said. 

You can see more in my previous posts from a few years ago here. 
If you are celebrating one of these two feast days today, I wish you a blessed and happy day! 
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Where To Go Sledding

The place in STL to go sledding, tubing, or your choice of sliding device is Art Hill. The great sloped arc descends from the art museum to the Grand Lagoon in Forest Park. Almost every child in St. Louis had sped down it at one time or another. The problem, though, is that of you are going too fast you could slide off the edge into the water. It is partly frozen now but was completely open when this was taken.

Today's newspaper headline says they we have stayed below freezing for thirteen days, the longest stretch in 35 years. http://bit.ly/2CPTOqs As a rule, we're not that cold a city.          

Brrrr

We have not been above freezing since before Christmas and there have been several nights sub-zero Fahrenheit (that's -18 C. Why this country does not convert to metric is beyond me.). That's unusual for here. In these pictures, freezing condensate pours off the top of the Federal Reserve Bank next to my office building (maybe they have to keep the money chilled) and ice flows throughout the Mississippi.

As I look out my office window this afternoon, there are chunks of ice in the river from bank to bank. If time and weather permit tomorrow, I may walk out onto Eads Bridge (rear of second photo) or even drive up to the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi. It's not that far away but the route is very indirect because of the shape of the rivers. And I've been trying to find the last time the river froze solid here. Hard to be sure but I think it was 1936.       

Cold + Wet + Wind

A  last note about sub-zero aquatics on New Year's Day. I admit to being a cold weenie but having the aromatic spray from the Mississippi in your face at such temperatures is unimaginable. It seems that you have to be the kind of person who wears a flamingo on his head to tolerate it.    

The Age Of Crazy Has Not Passed

It was -5F / -20.5C when I woke up yesterday morning. At noon on the riverfront it was 4F / -15.5. The water temperature was just below freezing. Remember, we are on about the same parallel as Sicily and Athens.

Being New Year's Day, it was time for the annual water ski run on the Mississippi by the Missouri Disabled Water Ski Association, a fine organization that gets people usually confined to wheelchairs out on the water at high speed. Fine people, yes, but they don't all necessarily have all thir marbles together.

I've shot this event before and on some cold days, but I've never seen ice in the river on January 1. It left the skiers with little room to maneuver. Only two people tried and only one actually got up.      

First day of  shooting with just the Fujifilm X-T2. There were other photographers with big Canon cameras and bigger white lenses. Doubt they got better shots than I did and my shoulders left in better shape.