a merry little christmas

I set out this morning to share a recipe my good friend Lily and her mom Judy created for lovely homemade cookie ornaments but I ended up passing a rainy day fruitlessly rifling through boxes, drawers, and stacks of paper. Lily was nice enough to share her family recipe and teach our oldest daughter and me how to make them last year, and although I have a distinct memory of placing it somewhere special so I wouldn’t forget it, I can’t remember where I put the card with the recipe.

Christmas can be like that. A strand on the tree goes out, you replace a bunch of bulbs and the fuses, and a half hour later, the strand is still dead. You forget gifts. You sit in traffic. You deal with jerks in line for Santa. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the chores and trials that you can miss all the beautiful, tender moments. So take a minute to look around the table at Christmas and remember your loved ones as happy as they are at that moment. Unwrap your presents slowly. Savor your eggnog (and rum). As you head out to celebrate Christmas, or to just enjoy a slightly quieter world, Brian and I wanted to leave you with some good thoughts and wish you and yours a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Truly, may all the best of the season be yours.

And if you’re not celebrating Christmas, enjoy Woks and Lox (seriously, you should go to this), or your Chinese food or your movie or whatever you do to take advantage of the empty streets.

Since we probably won’t be posting much until 2013, I leave you with a few thoughts and perhaps some fodder for New Year’s resolutions.

I love this post, Truth and Gratitude from Jennifer at Last Night’s Dinner. Let’s all promise to be a little real-er in the year ahead.

This post on slower blogging from Erin Loechner is inspirational. Let’s give up on keeping up and live life. For reals you guys.

And now, I’m going to go hang out with these ladies: