Christmas, Sunday, early: it doesn't get any quieter around here. When I first went out, a bus was the only vehicle on the street, rolling around the corner to start its long (and today, probably pretty quick) trip uptown. Tree sellers have all decamped, leaving unsold trees neatly bundled at the curb for the city to recycle into mulch for the parks. Saw two Santas on my way to the river. One was riding shotgun in a Con Ed van rushing to an emergency call. Had he been pulled out of a Christmas morning party, or did he just think he might as well enliven everyone's holiday workday? The other Santa was in full regalia including beard and hat, but not black boots: black sneakers instead, as he jogged along the path by the river. I kid you not.

The river itself was flat but running very high, with the tide still coming in. None of the pilings south of my bench were visible, and the water lapped an inch or two above the bottom of the nearby pier. Thanks to the nearly non-existent traffic, you could actually hear the tiny ripples hitting the seawall. North of me, where the pilings for some reason were cut off higher, a very few of them stuck up above the glassy water, to the gratification of a very few seagulls. The other gulls had to satisfy themselves with floating around. That wasn't so bad, though, because they found themselves in the middle of a widely-scattered debris field making its fast way north. Apparently the field held plenty to interest a gull, who are mostly interested in eating. Two male buffleheads landed way out at the end of the piling field, and bobbed their heads in and out of the water a few times, a bufflehead challenge. It might have meant there was a female nearby, but I didn't see her, and after a few minutes they both just started fishing. A pair of mallards trolled the seawall, in case there was anything of interest at the top, where they usually can't reach, and a cormorant flew smoothly by on his way to somewhere else.

Peace on earth, in air, and on water.