Our visually splendored, snow- capped scenery has been so stunningly still lately that I cleaned the windows just to make sure that what I was seeing was real.

When the sun does come out, I feel almost like I am part of a three-dimensional Currier and Ives hologram, caught in a web of obscure Christmas carols.

Which is why we plan on spending this Christmas Eve listening to Dean Martin sing Italian love songs.

After being subjected to two more versions of “Little Drummer Boy,” one by Kenny G. and the other by Brenda Lee, we had to calm down with 36 ounces of Hershey’s natural unsweetened cocoa, requiring four cups of sugar.

How thankful we are during the holidays to have a cousin nearby in Hood River who is an accredited dentist trained in the cosmetics of cocoa stains.

Wasn’t Coco Stain a defensive back for the Johnny Unitas led Baltimore Colts?

After all these cold days, albeit that they are timely and beautiful, we are feeling like we do after a power outage.

After three days, we’ve had enough.

Last week’s attempt to pick up family at SeaTac was reminiscent of my early days of snow-driven, fear driving which I learned in high school while avoiding the ditches that sidelined our serpentine back roads.

I think back on how scared I was trying to see anything outside the car windshield as slow-motion, chunky snow flakes the size of the old Sambo’s silver-dollar pancakes, fell in trance-like rhythms.

Maybe that trance-like snow cascading on the car window helps create more fear.

It reminds me of that depressing scene in “Young at Heart” when Frank Sinatra turns off his windshield wipers while driving too fast in a snowstorm.

This is no way to get Doris Day to stop crying.

Since moving here from Pennsylvania, I usually drive in the snow with worry beads and an old St. Christopher medal gifted me in Ohio in eighth grade.

Which gets back to listening to Dean Martin on Christmas Eve.

Most of the songs on the album are about 2 minutes, 40 seconds, perfect for my attention span.

One song, “Lune Mezzo Mare,” lasts but 2 minutes, 6 seconds.

I think the song is about an Italian horse race, and about the same length.

Speaking of horses, I sure hope I don’t get any gift certificates to Denny’s for Christmas.

I ate there last week waiting for Southwest Air to arrive at midnight after Las Vegas’ worst snowstorm since Liberace’s funeral.

I ordered the once-99 cent classic breakfast Grand Slam, now $5.99.

This grand slam was more like a two-run single.

Two eggs scrambled, two pancakes, two strips of bacon and two links of some substance which poet Peter Lawlor calls “un-sausage.”

Denny’s breakfast menu could read: Featuring Our Own Un-Sausage with all the home-style flavor of R-8 insulation and the imitation coloring of Scout, Tonto’s pinto horse.

Order up buckaroos!

Hi-yo Sausage, away!