It is a miracle if you can find true friends, and it is a miracle if you have enough food to eat, and it is a miracle if you get to spend your days and evenings doing whatever it is you like to do, and the holiday season -- like all the other seasons -- is a good time not only to tell stories of miracles, but to think about the miracles in your own life, and to be grateful for them.
Lemony Snicket
The Lump of Coal
There's another one by Charles Dickens, but I can't think of the exact words, and I can't find it right now, so I'll post it when I find it.
This is a reminder to myself to be grateful for each and every little thing in my life, including those that make me unhappy, to remind me of just how happy I can be, and also to be grateful for all the people in my life who teach me so many lessons, and who allow me to be their teacher as well. Honorable mention to my husband and my children and their spouses, without whom I would not be the person I am today. I'm also grateful for my sisters, brothers, and parents (gone but not forgotten), inclusive of those I acquired when I joined a new family 30 years ago; and though many are distant, I am grateful for nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends who I hope receive tingling ears whenever I think of them, which I do often.
As you're perusing the pictures accompanying this post, if you look closely, you will see lobster claws on our Christmas tree. This tradition started one Christmas when we were moving the furniture to accommodate the tree, and found a couple of lobster claws the cats had knocked under the sofa, likely subsequent to a summer lobster fest (this doesn't speak well of my housekeeping!!). My very creative cerebral husband put them on the tree and called them "Santa Claws", and we have added more through the years as a special family tradition. I won't tell the story of when he put a lamb in the nativity manger and sang "Mary Had a Little Lamb", I don't want to offend anyone.
My theme song, per usual, for the season is this.
Namaste.
