This Christmas Morning

In my youth Christmas meant grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and all the cheery music and contagious laughter of the season. Christmas meant going to church and driving to Brooklyn and wearing velvet dresses. Christmas meant giving to everyone and was crowded with family all doing the same thing year after year after year until traditions changed and then it was something else for years more before it changed again to something different every year. But Christmas is a feeling that tingles like joy does. Small and quiet and then huge.

Brooklyn family Christmas 1960's

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I’m Back!

Oh my goodness, celebrating a milestone birthday certainly disrupted all the regular day to day stuff in my life, bringing two weeks of travel for multiple gatherings, yes multiple cakes, and so much fun, but not a single moment to jot down even a thought, never mind a blog post. But now, I’m back! Ready to look forward renewed and refreshed, and with a very full heart.

birthday candles and cake

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Together for a moment

I am that mom who had my kids out the door early. Summer camps and travel experiences led straight to college and beyond. Even if they circled back home they were clear across the country in no time at all. My mom never held me back from life either. Regardless of my questionable decision making, she let the cards fall as they would. When I needed to circle back, she made sure I did not shy away from life for long. All that is to say that I don’t often have them, my children, together in one frame, but last week they stood together for a moment, on a grassy hill, with the latest addition to the clan kicking a soccer ball, ocean pounding along on the horizon and the cobalt blue taking up the vast sky overhead, and I smiled.


people in a part
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