Holiday Thoughts on Christmas Eve

I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season.

I'm celebrating a traditional but solitary New England Christmas here in New Hampshire, missing my father greatly but recalling wonderful Christmas memories from childhood.

The traditional reading of "The Night Before Christmas" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", remembering how hard it was to get to sleep on Christmas eve listening for any faint sound that might actually be Santa on the roof, and the rush of anticipation in my belly keeping me awake 'till I finally drifted off to sleep. Then waking up early on Christmas morning, wondering if it's too early to wake mom and dad to get the day started, feeling like it's taking them forever while they make their coffee and have a bit of breakfast before finally gathering around the tree to see if your wishes had been answered by Santa.

I'm also thinking of all the people who might not be having a 'merry' Christmas for whatever reason, including those not able to be with their loved ones for the holidays and those who can't afford to get their kids what they've been asking for the past year. And most recently, the employees who have found themselves suddenly without their jobs just before Christmas.

To many of those folks, remember that there are people out there who care, and tomorrow's always a new day.
And as my father would always say to me when times were tough, "this too shall pass", then he'd remind me to "keep smiling".

Bless you Dad.
And bless all of you, one and all..

Crazy For The Holidays

I plead guilty to neglecting this blog recently.
A few of the reasons are here:

1. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by the magnitude of scandals, dirty tricks, self-serving talking heads, and election coverage that treats it like a game or spectator sport. Bush and his gang lie with impunity, and right-wing water carriers are still lugging their bilge water.

2. Meanwhile my ADD addled brain is jumping from the holidays, to increased seasonal depression, to a new blog for the Concord Monitor Online's "blogsNH" that I'm about to start. Add to that an upstairs neighbor who walks like Frankenstein, shaking this 100 year old former hotel, a new management company for us who looks to be doing it on the cheap, and the second year of being without my dear old Dad and wanting to move back to Western Mass to be close to my mother who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's.

When it gets really bad I remember my father's words of wisdom (not that he came up with this, but..) "This too shall pass", and one of his favorites "Smile a lot".

So that's what I'm trying to keep in mind this winter as I do my best to keep all the balls in the air. And if I drop one, rest assured that I'll bend down and pick it up, and toss it back up in the air with the rest as soon as I can.

Troubled times only make the good times that much sweeter to savor.

And remember to "Smile a lot".