The finest days of the year

December 21.

It snowed slightly this morning, so as to cover the ground half an inch deep. Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick. It must have frozen, the whole of it, since the snow of the 18th,-- probably the night of the 18th. 

It is very thickly covered with what C. calls ice-rosettes, i.e. those small pinches of crystallized snow, -- as thickly as if it had snowed in that form. I think it is a sort of hoar frost on the ice. It was all done last night, for we see them thickly clustered about our skate-tracks on the river, where it was quite bare yesterday. 

We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year. Take Fair Haven Pond, for instance, a perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still. 

The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. I see the feathers of a partridge strewn along on the snow a long distance, the work of some hawk perhaps, for there is no track.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 21, 1854

Walden is frozen over, . . .probably the night of the 18th. See December 21, 1855 ("Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove."); also A Book of the Seasons, First Ice.

We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year. See December 10, 1853 (”These are among the finest days in the year . . .”); October 10, 1856 (" These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer."); May 21, 1854 (“ . . .the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.").