A Card and a Bird

This comes from Elder M. I am putting it on my blog, not his. Just because.

A card from Elder M., the animation guy.

AND

Here is the announcement of the winner of the LLB:

She will be most joyfully winging her way off to

Jane !!!!

This makes me very glad because Jane was one of my three best friends all during junior high and high school in New York. She was and is funny, kind, classy and bright. Her friendship is one of the things I remember very happily in a time that had its shadows. I’ve been looking for her for years off and on, but this year we connected, and I find her just as dear as she ever was. So I am glad the LLB will be hers. Just a bit of payback for a grade A, certified, handmade and classic quality friendship.

Congrats, Jane!!!

Well, kids. The Christmas lights are all on, the tree lit. Some families gathered around the table or the fire, or the room, singing, laughing, eating – remembering. Some off taking bounty to neighbors and friends. Some traveling home, ready to tumble into bed and wake to the excitement of the day’s mysteries.

Some do more remembering than anything else, kids grown and flown, lives changing. A bitter sweet time, then – and we wonder how what had once been so real and immediate could have vanished behind us.

But there is always good to do, love to give – making and baking and taking and thinking and singing and carrying a prayer of blessing, ready to leave it at every door stop, at the foot of every kind look and gracious gesture. And mercy to leave in other places – the impatient, the sad, the usually unacceptable.

Don’t waste this night. Or tomorrow’s day. We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams. We have the power to bless, even in secret. And to be grateful for the brilliant flashes of moment that are family and love and belonging.

We wish you a merry yule, but a merrier Christmas. From our house to yours, and to all a good night!