Happy Holidays!

This is the winter moon as I saw it last night from my back garden. Yesterday was winter soltice and the moon always seems so special to me at this time of year. It's that one time of year when we've gotten the shortest day of the year  in the northern hemisphere. It all gets brighter from here. The days get longer little by little, I start to feel that sense of renewal that comes with a new year and with spring on the horizon. It seems such a time of great hope and anticipation.

We are off this morning to spend the weekend with our daughter in law and grand daughter. Our daughter is working in Hartford, CT so we won't see her. But we've sent her a little Christmas in a box. We'll celebrate a late Christmas in January with her.

  But we will be able to spend our first Christmas with our son's new wife and daughter. We are over the moon happy to begin this new journey of family with Tammy and Alyssa. We'll be bringing up family Christmas ornaments, baking cookies, and decorating a tree together, cooking a special dinner. 

We've been asked to stand in as Santa for my son while he's away in Afghanistan. So we've got a sleigh full of stocking goodies packed up and ready to go. We've even got the stockings that he ordered and had sent to us along with a very special teddy bear for Alyssa's stocking. I don't think I've looked forward to Christmas morning this much since my children were just little. I'm not sure that there is anything more magical than littlies opening stockings on Christmas morning.

That's my grand daughter modeling her new snow pants form Nana. I am hoping we won't actually need to have snow pants. I can have quite a nice Christmas without any snow, thank you very much.

Wishing you peace and joy.

Happy Holidays!