Paper Snowflakes on Every Window

My granddaughter stayed with me for a week in December. On the first afternoon, it was snowing, and she was bored. So I taught her to make paper snowflakes, the way my mother taught me in Kyiv when I was a little girl.

You fold a square of paper in half, then in thirds, then cut little shapes into the edges with small scissors. When you open it up, it's a snowflake. Every one is different.

She was enchanted. She made one, then ten, then fifty. She experimented with tiny triangles and hearts and swirls. She invented a "snowflake with a cat face." By the end of the week, we had covered every window in my apartment, all the way up to the top, where I needed a stepladder.

When the sun shines through them in the morning, the whole room fills with lacy shadows. My granddaughter went home on Friday. I haven't taken a single one down. My neighbor across the courtyard told me my windows are the prettiest in the building.