Mid Thoughts

If you need evidence that the Christmas season is about miracles then consider the following events – beyond the major one, celebration of the virgin birth of Jesus.
-Christmas eve: there I stand, peeling leaves from Brussel sprouts until more than a small mound is evidenced and the heads are pristine in their beauty
-Christmas Day, with tons of stuff yet remaining to be done before the family dinner, there I sit, in Church and had I known that it would be THE ONLY quiet respite of the day I would have relished it more
-Boxing Day: Me, I, am in a shopping mall … IN, I say! To all the clerks with whom I had contact I, freely explained I intended to buy nothing, but I had a parking spot, so there!

We are about 1/2way through the Holiday Season and I am most grateful for all that is. My niece-the-librarian arrived safely from Houston and of course I did the “dance of joy” at “Greeting Station D”. She is now off in Edmonton visiting with other friends of which she does not have a shortage. For Christmas, among many other things (mmmm…. hot sauce …. mmmmm …. salsa – the real stuff from TX) she gave me a book with a tin cover. It is quite striking in appearance and I wondered how best to preserve this item, not hidden away but serving a purpose for which it might be intended. My big-sister-the-artist declined to fill every page with pencil sketches and then return it to me and my niece admonished me in that the gift was not suppose to result in work for mom. Big sister suggested it might be used as some kind of guest book. While not pooh-poohing the idea outright I was more bemused than convinced. Now, the break in between Christmas and New Years has always been somewhat of an “Advent” time for me, just as the period before Christmas. However this Advent is more personal as I try to get the keel squared away for easy or at least more straight sailing in the year to come.

“YES” I thought, that is EXACTLY what I will use that little book for. In the new year I will try (yeah Yoda says there is no such thing as “try”), to be more accessible and more willing to include folk in the new year – this and a number of other sorts of personal enhancements usually forgotten by the end of the first week and certainly by the end of the first year.

It is snowing out at the moment, reminding us that it really is winter AND the days will grow longer to the point that there is visible dusk even past 11:00PM. Yes, Percy Bysshe Shelly was right .... “If winter comes can spring be far behind”.