Ah, welcome back Downton Abbey!  Hello, Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson.  Greetings, Mr. Bates and Anna.  A friendly wave to Mrs. Patmore and Daisy.  A nod to grieving Mary and Branson, and a hug to little Sybil and George.  How nice to see you again, Lady Violet--glad to know your acerbic wit survived the long hiatus.  And Cora...really?  You have to be the easiest mark in the world...how can you not see through first O'Brien and now Thomas?  They are VILLAINS!  They are Crabby Appletons...rotten to the core!

Thank you all for gracing my home again last night.  We celebrated your return in style--Earl Grey hot chocolate, Lady Grey hot tea, Earl Grey cream parfaits and an English cake roll with tea infused whipped cream.  With a two hour premier we had plenty of time to stuff ourselves (politely, in proper English fashion, of course!).  

I used my "new" vintage tea cups that reminded me of the Downton Abbey tea cups currently for sale. Sorry for the blurry image, I just couldn't get a good picture of it in spite of many attempts!  

And we followed our thoroughly British repast with sherry from my husband's lovely new decanter:

for which we used my new DA coasters (thank you to my daughter for such a sweet Christmas gift--you know me oh so well!)

And after a lovely, lovely, lovely Sunday evening, I get to stay home all day today because of the cold! Cross stitch...here I come!

Enjoy your Monday, and wherever you are, stay warm!

This little light of mine....

When I was a little girl we sang a song in Sunday School that went "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."  It had hand gestures and a bouncy melody and we all loved to sing it.

I was thinking about those lyrics this morning..."hide it under a bushel...no!...I'm gonna let it shine" and how easy it is to hide or even lose our light on our daily path.  Work, obligations, duties, worries, and the stress of daily life can all put our little lights under a bushel where it's hard to see the flicker.  I must daily remember to walk in the light, if for no other reason than to light the path for someone whose road is darker than mine.

When we give of ourselves, we help to spread the light.  I wanted to share with you today a gift my son made for Christmas that not only spreads the light but was one of the most thoughtful gifts I've ever seen. His girlfriend has a college degree in linguistics, and her senior thesis explored the relationships between the spoken word, poetry and music.  My son found copies of some of the books that were quoted in her thesis, and used them to create a very special  gift for her.

Her little light is going to shine brightly on her bedside table each night!

My hope for today is that we all find a way to spread the light--through a kind deed, a smile to someone who looks sad, sharing a laugh with a friend, or extending the hand of kindness.  Have a wonderful Friday!

For my family, part of the holiday fun is celebrating the traditions we have built over the years, whether it is assembling our Dickens village:

or displaying my daughter's collection of holiday water globes (and now that I think of it, I guess this was the last year for her display as she will be married with her own home next Christmas!):

or making our special Wassail punch for our Christmas movies night:

or even knowing that the first "person" to open her Christmas stocking will be Willow:

But another part of the fun comes from building new traditions as well, as we welcome others into our family circle.  This New Year's we celebrated the "old" tradition of dining on cheesy grits and rice calas cakes, New Orleans' style:

But we also celebrated the "new" by adding black eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread to our dinner menu, which is a cherished family tradition of my son's girlfriend. In the South the collard greens represent dollar bills, the peas coins and the cornbread gold, and having them all together promises a new year of prosperity.

That's the nice thing about traditions--we create them, so we can change them as we wish.  It's fun to mix things up a bit.  And it was a real surprise to discover that my whole family LOVED the collard greens!  And that's my hope for this new year--no resolutions, just a deep desire to be open to change and embrace what comes with an open mind and a loving spirit.

Happy New Year to all of you, and may we all "ring in the true" in 2014!

I won't lie--I'm happy to say goodbye to 2013, and I fervently hope that 2014 brings peace and joy to my family and friends.  It was a difficult year, full of health worries about our loved ones, coping with chronic illness, financial uncertainty, job concerns and a host of small, niggly problems that don't seem like much at the time but taken all together made for a year I am glad to say goodbye to.  There is so much to look forward to in the new year---baby and wedding showers for close friends and relatives, my first grandchild, and my daughter's wedding.  I look forward to a year of celebrations!

But on a deep level, I know that I and so many of my friends are searching for a way to make every day a happy day-- how do we acknowledge all the quiet days of going to work, taking care of our family's needs and trying to be a good mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend that exist outside of the few celebratory holiday and special days?  How do we conciously recognize that each day has the same opportunity for "finding" happiness?   I've had Lincoln's quote on my refrigerator for years--the paper is wrinkled and ripped from packing and unpacking and living on a number of refrigerators, but it is such a meaningful quote that resonates with me and no matter how battered it now looks, it is a constant reminder that I set the tone of the day for myself and for my family. 

 

That is why I was intrigued when I saw this suggestion recently.  It comes from the Hunting Happiness Project (link here) and I thought it is an idea worth trying.  I kept a "gratitude journal" for several years, but wasn't very consistent with my entries and it eventually ended up on a shelf in my library.  I think this is a more visual way to remind myself daily to look for the good things that happen spontaneously.  I already have one of my treasured vintage blue mason jars set out in my kitchen, ready to start recording happiness moments.  I love the idea of reading all those special little moments next New Year's Eve and remembering that even when life gets tough and the path is unclear, happiness still arrives.  All I have to do is greet it.

 

 

 



It's a new world...

In one of my favorite musicals, a bemused Tevye turns to his wife, Golde, and mutters "it's a new world, Golde."  My husband and I have used that phrase many, many (many!) times over the past thirty years as we raised our children in a world that was changing faster than we could keep up with.

And certainly this Christmas was no exception.  My husband and I tend to gravitate towards a simpler 33 RPM world (I won't tell you how long it took for us to figure out how to access Netflix on our television, and I certainly won't mention that I JUST THIS MONTH discovered Pandora radio...).

But this Christmas was filled with bells and whistles we now need to figure out.  Please don't get me wrong...the gifts are all lovely but the instruction manuals are just a tad daunting.  I gave my husband a valet box from Monticello for his dresser top...that includes slots for cords so that he can charge his smart phone and his MP3 player and always know where his chargers are.  (Do they mysteriously disappear in your home, or is this a phenomenon that happens over and over at just our house?)

I received a Trio mini-tablet that is tiny but oh so powerful--it links to wi-fi and allows me to check my email, and facebook, access the internet, watch movies and you-tube videos, take pictures and download music and books for my reading and listening pleasure.  It's basically a smart phone without the phone part.  I don't have it all figured out yet, but I did manage to download the free books that I could access..."great literature of the Western world" including almost all of Jane Austen's works.  My family was not surprised that Jane Austen, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were the first downloads.  If you are going to build an online library, you still want to choose carefully, right?!

And our daughter now has a nifty new tablet that attaches to a mini-keyboard so that she doesn't have to lug her laptop to school and work:

So while tradition (tradition!--sorry, Tevye's theme song is playing in my head...) calls for us to all settle down with our new books on Christmas afternoon (and there certainly were new books a'plenty--everyone received at least three and I was the lucky recipient of six new books!) this Christmas found us poring over instruction manuals and charging up our new little engines of information.  We may always be Tevye and Golde, but we are trying in our own slow fashion to change with the world!  

And miles away, my sister was busy setting up a Skype account on my mother's computer so that we can all check each other out.  I'm not sure yet how I feel about this technological advance...I'm often in a fuzzy robe and no makeup when I talk on the phone--not exactly "company" ready.  And as for my mother?  She told me last night that her new year's resolution was to "not be like my husband's sweatshirt."  It is indeed a new world, Golde!  

I think poet James S. Huggins also lives in my 33 rpm world...

Remember When

A Poem About Technology

A computer was something on TV

From a sci fi show of note.

A window was something you hated to clean

And ram was the cousin of goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend

And gig was a job for the nights.

Now they all mean different things

And that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment.

A program was a TV show.

A curser used profanity.

A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age.

A CD was a bank account.

And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy

You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage

Not something you did to a file.

And if you unzipped anything in public

You'd be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire.

Hard drive was a long trip on the road.

A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.

And a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.

Paste you did with glue.

A web was a spider's home.

And a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper

And the memory in my head.

I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash,

But when it happens they wish they were dead.

Have a lovely start to your week, and stay warm.  It's -20 degrees wind chill outside this morning.  Brr!!

Christmas Miracles

Christmas miracles!  I have decided to post my 2012 Christmas Eve post because truly, this is my favorite story about a BIG PRAYER and a little girl, and who doesn't need a miracle or two right now?

 

The Christmas my daughter was four, she had mentioned several things she hoped Santa might have tucked away in his sleigh, but she also kept hinting that there was one special gift she had secretly wished for but was keeping that wish to herself, much like little Susan in Miracle on 34th Street.  Since she had three older brothers, we were working very hard to keep the magic of the Santa story alive and she wanted desperately to still believe in Christmas magic.  As all moms would do in a situation like this, I called on my friend Rita to see if she could get to the bottom of this special request to Santa. During a Christmas concert she leaned over and promised my daughter her secret would be safe with her, so we eventually found out that the desire of my little girl's heart and the gift that would prove Santa's existence was.....a Little Mermaid giga pet.  Problem solved--order one from the Disney Store and Christmas would be saved!

Except that (you know the rest of this story, right?) the Little Mermaid giga pet was sold out.  Completely.  Back ordered until May.  Maybe later.  I called on friends and cousins who lived in larger communities to scour the shelves of their Disney stores.  No luck.  Cue to Christmas Eve afternoon and I'm in the kitchen baking pumpkin pies and experiencing that awful feeling that a mother has when she knows she can't deliver Santa magic.  My oldest son wandered in, and always empathetic, picked up on my dismay.  I shared with him the whole sad saga of the back-ordered giga pet that would prove to my sweet little girl that Santa magic didn't really exist.  He listened carefully, and then put his hands in mine and earnestly asked if I wanted him to go upstairs to his bedroom and pray his BIG PRAYER.  I didn't even know he had a big prayer, but I thanked him and off he went.  Then, of course, I began to feel even worse, because now in addition to my little girl feeling let down by Santa, my son would feel let down by God!

A few minutes later, down he came, happily assuring me he had prayed and I should stop worrying.  Oh ye of little faith, right?  I simply could not have felt worse. And then, fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang.  On our snowy steps stood the UPS deliveryman with a package.  From the Disney Store.  With a Little Mermaid giga pet.  I think I glimpsed angel wings on his back as he turned towards his truck.  To this day I have no answers for this, my very own Christmas miracle.  All I know is that I do believe in Christmas magic and Christmas miracles.  And I believe in the power of a little boy's love for his sister and his steadfast belief in the power of prayer.  God bless us, every one.

 

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family!

 

Getting up early yesterday morning afforded me the time to wander around my house, rejoicing in the loveliness of our Christmas tree and the beautiful snow storm outside. 

After all my worrying and fretting, somehow it's all done...house decorated, village up, holiday shopping finished and presents wrapped, packages mailed.  The "roast beast" for our annual Christmas movie night is in the crockpot and my children are all safely home with plans to bake cookies all afternoon in anticipation of tonight's time together.  Christmas officially starts for us on December 23, when we celebrate a traditional British feast of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and roasted Brussel sprouts/potatoes and pancetta, followed by Wassail punch and our favorite cookies as we watch It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol (with George C. Scott as Scrooge.)  We have watched them for so many years that it has become "participatory theater"...my kids say the lines along with the actors.  Think Rocky Horror Picture Show, without the Bic lighters!  Every time poor little Tiny Tim says "God bless us, every one" they all roar with laughter.  Tomorrow night we will attend the candelight service at our church, and then watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  True to form, while I listen to the sweet song at the end (Welcome Christmas) with a few tears in my eyes at the purity and simplicity of the song and its meaning, my kids are busy holding hands and pretending to be Whos.  Oh well, I love them anyway.  That's what I get for having actors in the family!

 

Yesterday's snowstorm left us with no worries about having a White Christmas!

 

 

But inside the house was warm, quiet and beautiful so early in the morning:

 

And the villagers went on about their business--travelers waited for the train at Victoria Station, a quartet cheerfully played Christmas carols, worshippers attended a candlelight service at St. Martin in the Fields (unlike our local churches, which were closed due to the snowstorm) and the Queen was in residence at Buckingham Palace (note the Union Jack is flying over the palace):

 

 

 

And for a brief moment in time, the magic of Christmas hung in the air...

 

 

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

 

--Christina Rossetti