Saturday, December 20, 2014

Blessings for a quiet time

When my neighbor, Susan, came in for happy hour tonight she said, "It's so quiet. Usually there's so much going on here." I told her Jacob would be here shortly and that would change...and sure enough it did. Sophie came in from the yard, Jordan and Jacob arrived, and suddenly everyone was talking at once, haggling over who was doing what for New Year's. Good gracious--we haven't even gotten through Christmas yet and they're planning New Year's. Of course, it all has to be planned around those football games, which neither Susan nor I care one whit about.
But basically, it was a quiet day, and I treasure those as we approach Christmas. So many people are rushed, harried and hurried in these last countdown days that I'm almost afraid to say I have it all done and I've been piddling. Emails, Facebook, updating my iPad's Kindle selections, culling through recipe magazines that piled up on my desk. I found so many recipes I want to try that we'll have to have a feast every weekend for weeks to come. But it's a pleasant feeling, and a part of me says that for those of us who celebrate Christmas this is the way it should be: quiet, contemplative, a time to ponder the wonder of the holiday and of God's great gift of love given to us. I'm enjoying it.
I did start the day off at an small but elegant breakfast party with a really innovative menu--a wonderful egg and Gruyere and prosciutto casserole, a distinctive broccoli and cauliflower salad with a hint of blue in the dressing, and some lightly pickled beets--I adore beets and made a pig of myself. My shoes weren't nearly the hit they were last night, but it was a different crowd, one where I knew some but not a lot of the guests. Still it added to my sense of peace and grace about the season.
Home for a nap, a quiet happy hour with Jay (until Susan finished vacuuming) and then Jordan and Jacob arrived. Jay and I have great political discussions--he a conservative and me a liberal but we both recognize logic so sometimes its sort of fun.
Now Jacob is on his iPad in the back room--he who won't sleep back there and insisted on light when he did is perfectly content to work on his iPad in the pitch dark. He's anxiously waiting for me to get off the computer. It's a bit disconcerting that he knows more than I do--yesterday morning he had to restore the sounds to my TV. Tonight he wants to play games so I asked the all-important question: are these games free? "juju, you pull them up on line. Of course they're free!"
Off to sit by the fire and read. I hope everyone also has a quiet and peaceful night.

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