new

I spent yesterday putting away the Christmas decorations and dutifully dusting a few nooks and crannies that were desperately needing it. It was a different Christmas than I had expected, yet also sweet in the giving and receiving. We went to Angel Fire, NM to be with my parents and siblings. Christmas day, the cousins chose a tree from the cabin's lot and decorated it with handmade ornaments.

I was able to find some perfect gifts for the girls (thanks to a very generous jar from an anonymous giver). We were so surprised and thankful that we decided to keep a Christmas jar for someone next year. Here are a few that were fun to give and to open!

Lea wearing her cute glasses--a gift from her early morning stocking. 

Michael, reading Truman Capote

I found a great deal on Oxfords and owls (necklace)...isn't she pretty??

I love the striped top she found for me! Notice the buttons (I love buttons :-)!)

Michael and Laura are full of beautiful and exciting dreams, so I was elated to find the perfect bird teapot and cup for Laura (wish I had taken a picture!), with Aristotle's words, "Hope is a waking dream" inscribed inside the tea cup. Isn't that a lovely idea?

 Lynnae and I exchanged favorite books. Gilead for her (I love this book too) and a book of blessing for me.

Finally, for those of you who check here every now and then, thanks so much for stopping by and for your comments of love and support. Happiest 2011~

"...may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life."

-- To Bless the Space Between Us

traditions

--pictures at Old Colorado City (used to be with Santa)

before the lunar eclipse

 relaxing few hours with the four girls at Wisdom Tea House...one of our newer, but favorite traditions.

an evening of cookie decorating

 and reading by the fire

Wishing all of our friends peace and joy this season!

blessing and time

Because rituals remind, the experience of time during the holidays can be bittersweet for us. Maybe, because of what is lost, we have to "fight through," pretending to enjoy for the sake of those we love. 

As O'Donohue writes, the work of day-to-day living is precarious:  there can be danger or darkness anywhere. Habitual time can turn in a second, and suddenly some unforeseen suffering is taking up tenancy in one's life... 

Blessing, he says, calls the potentiality of the future into the present moment and into the loss of the past:

To live like this is to experience time as a constant invitation to growth--to become more than you have been, to transform loss into presence, and to allow what is false to fall away. At the gates of time, blessing waits to usher toward us the grace we need....A blessing awakens future wholeness...a blessing 'forebrightens' the way. When a blessing is invoked, a window opens in eternal time.

One of my favorite poems by Wendy Cope evokes this achingly beautiful image of forebrightening, one I hope is present for all of us this year.

gifts

awesome gifts from my family that were especially appreciated this year:

a cute little canon powershot (so I could take pictures of weddings and dances and ballgames!)

a cool black thermal from Gap (because I wear one almost every day!) --with tiny little buttons on the sleeves

and an ESPRESSO machine...because double tall lattes are the BEST!

the other christmas poem

The Excluded Animals

Only a certain
claque of beasts
is part of the
creche racket

forming a
steamy-breathed
semicircle
around the
baby basket.

Anything more
exotic than
a camel
is out of luck
this season.

Not that the
excluded animals envy
the long-lashed
sycophants;

cormorants
don't toady,
nor do toads
adore anybody
for any reason.

Nor do the
unchosen alligators,
grinning their
three-foot grin
as they laze
in the blankety waters
like the blankets on Him.
--Kay Ryan

wish list part 2

Christmas wine charms

this thermal (because I wear one almost every day)

and just for wishing....

because double shot lattes are the best!