With the holiday coming on the heels of a personal meltdown, I wondered how a weekend of ‘everyone-home-in-a-tiny-house-with-unstructured-time-for-4-days’ would go. I would normally have begged Dennis to take us ‘somewhere’ and to do ‘something’ – but I gave up on that on last Sunday.  I am pleased to say that it went quiet nicely.

Now here I am, on a Monday morning, back to the normal, monotonous routine, entering the ‘most wonderful time of year’ – ha! I say that sarcastically. If Christmas could be about spiritual reflection, the coming of Hope & Love, friends, family, food and goodwill, I know I could really love it. Somehow the shopping, Christmas carols crucified by stores and radio stations and other pressure cast a dark shadow on my festivities. I’m going to try. Really.

I am entering this holiday season at a deficit, but I am focusing on the concept of ‘Hope’. It happens to the be the theme of the first week of Advent. I’ve never formally celebrated Advent before and although I am pretty opposed to organized religion at this point in my life, something about it is calling to me. I am off to find some Advent traditions that work for my family and feel right to me. Anything about ‘Hope’ right now is totally for me.

‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’
~ Oscar Wilde