This Christmas

Christmas Spritz Cookies with Silver Sugar Glitter

 
Our Christmas was merry with games, gifts, carols, candles, and food, even though my poor husband came down with the 'flu on the twenty-third.

I was hoping for a white Christmas and woke up to snow softly falling on Christmas morning! (How perfect is that?)

Although the following was written last Christmastide; it's a message that is valuable to me still:

After the shepherds worshiped their newborn King, whose cradle was not crafted of gold, but was a homely animal trough, they returned to the fields, to their sheep, to their families and their work. Christ had come, but what had changed?  Nothing.  Everything. Christmas is the difference between standing in a room in the middle of the night, and standing in it in the morning. The room doesn't change at all, but your view of it has changed completely. And, so everything has changed, because now you see.

For Catholics, Christmas is more than a day.  It is a season that begins on Christmas Eve, that holy night, and continues through January 5th.  I am still in the midst of it, beholding the view, and pondering what it means for my life. These are the days that I take joy, and also take stock. I am writing down my thoughts as I pray each day, and considering what my response to Christ's coming should be in the year ahead.  The spiritual life is rooted firmly in the practical. The real life I lead each day in my home and community is the pulse of my spirit.  I have much to think about in the Christmas days still left, and much to do to plan for a new year of home learning, healthy living, and open-hearted loving.