CHRISTmastime..

by coffeesister · 13 comments

gothic_xmas_tree

Merry, Happy
Christmas Holidays
with Season’s Greetings!!!

Be it merry or happy, Chanukah or Advent, Kwanzaa or Boxing Day, Winter Solstice or multiple choice; may the season hold both meaning & moments of joy. Whether you’re recreating traditions or creating new ones, have spent too much or have nothing to spend, what’s clear & what matters is taking the time to reflect. What do you believe, what are you open to &, moreover, who do you love but, most importantly, how are you showing it? From taking time to be kind to yourself to the thoughtfulness you’re showing to those around you, it’s not that December has a corner on the market nor should but with all these holidays intertwining; take advantage, people!

No, Christ wasn’t born at this time &, yes, He’s a controversial character to boot. Saint Father Claus & origins are also in question yet, whatever you believe or might consider, both represent concepts we should all hold dear. While PC & PR have dimmed the intended messages, allow this time of year to be what makes you happy & brings your family together. There’s no right or wrong way to go about celebrating whichever holiday or holidays you choose, each of our celebrations are what we make of them & special simply by being ours. My ideal holiday would integrate them all for they each have phenomenal purpose. May all of you have or find something worth commemorating this time of year..

“I will honour Christmas in my heart,
and try to keep it all the year.”
~ Charles Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’ ~

Having a home for the holidays this year has allowed our stockings to be hung which I find means a lot; more than the fact they’re likely to remain empty. If only I were exaggerating for impact but we’re barely surviving amidst an overwhelming need to repay the unintentional loan that provided this home. There are no hard feelings tho’ we were told the funds wouldn’t have been made accessible if our friends had it to do again which would’ve worsened our homelessness & jeopardized all we have, especially our kids — er — cats. As harsh a reality as their desire to undo our saving grace is, the harsher reality is that we hijacked our friends’ money.

What has all this to do with Christmas? What’s more Christmasy than a miracle? Whatever the means, we would not otherwise have a home nor would we have anytime soon & a home is by far the best gift we could’ve gotten this holiday. Although the funds are urgently needed by them now, we can’t help but hope that they’ll trust their gift to be granted as well thus providing two miracles for the price of one. While our obscure holiday wish may be finding a benefactor ready to replace that 10% of their adoption fund we ‘borrowed’, all we’re really asking for is their understanding & recognition of the true miracle they unwittingly made possible.

Attribution: Tab, The Calgary Sun

Whatever your circumstances, however you got there, grab hold of what’s working & let go of what’s not then take hold of what’s left. Building on that foundation will not only reveal the shape your holidays should take but will lay the groundwork for the new year to come. After all, it’s the first year of the rest of your life. To all of us: To miracles that happen despite our best efforts & the little joys that take us by surprise but, most of all, to being!

(|_| *ch33rs* |_|)

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
~ Charles Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’ ~

Pass the mug; share the love <3

Tagged as: Christmas, holidays

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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Nick 23 December 2007 at 3:54 pm: Thanks for the seasons greetings Sister,

I’m so happy you have a home to celebrate in…

I’m a bit Grinchy this year, so you’ll have to excuse me if my muse seems to have taken a hike…

Merry (insert appropriate holiday here), and Happy New Year!

Peace and white light, Nick

You’re quite welcome, dear man! Be as Grinchy as needed for his heart grew three sizes..

I hope your New Year proves happy & your muse returns well-rested.

Dorian |_|) “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” ~ Dr. Seuss
2 Jordan 23 December 2007 at 5:01 pm: Cheers!! That was excellent, and I’ve never agreed more.

And that portrait of Jack makes me so happy, to boot.

Happy Solstice!

Thank YOU! Jack is ever so happy-making..

Happy SOULstice even!?

your sister |_|) “Just because I cannot see it, doesn’t mean I can’t believe it!” ~ Jack Skellington
3 MCF 23 December 2007 at 7:22 pm: Thanks for the Christmas links and wishes! May you and Rhodester have a Merry and blessed one!

You’re welcome! Much merriness & blessings to you..

merrily caffeinated friend |_|) “I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.” ~ Harlan Miller
4 Elizabeth 23 December 2007 at 11:57 pm: Happy Christmas to All! And to All A Good Night! In the Spirit of Jack- Merry Christmas! He He Heeee! Love the Jack pic and the pic of Jack and Sally on The Hill in the Snow. xoxo

What’s Christmas without Jack & Sally? I hope your holidays are proving the happiest, merriest possible.. without seeing us, that is.

Dorian |_|) “There’s children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads, they’re busy building toys and absolutely no one’s dead!” ~ Jack Skellington
5 Omyword! 24 December 2007 at 1:12 am: Thanks so much for the email, and for reminding me that this time of year is a great time to reflect.

I think of you guys often and am glad that you have a home for Christmas. We got into ours by the skin of our teeth, but it is cozy and I am very, very grateful.

I wish you and the Rhodester a loving holiday, because that’s what really counts.

You’re more than welcome! How apropos this time of year; the miracles that found our families their own bits of coziness in time for Christmas.. That yours is also a corner apartment like ours but has a view of Sacre Coeur, très magnifique!!

Love is precisely what counts, thanx, & may yours prove as loving which I suspect is inevitable.

Joyeux Noel! |_|) “Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give. It’s Christmas.” ~ Dale Evans Rogers
6 Sheryl 24 December 2007 at 6:23 pm: Merry Christmas!!! I am glad that you have a place to hang your stockings, and just so you know I am sure that we would have still helped out all we could because we love you, just wish it turned out differently on how it happened, you are such an important friend and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for you, I just don’t want our friendship to suffer. Consider yourself hugged.

Hug gladly accepted.. The down & dirty of it is that how things play out isn’t always up to us mere players while the upshot is that we simply wouldn’t have a home or even the hope of one without the way it did play out. Moreover, let’s allow for & believe your adoption won’t end up compromised in the process.

Adopting you as my sister may have been a far less legal process than the one you’re now undertaking but, rest assured, you’re equally stuck with me.

Dorian |_|) “I’m treating you as a friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses.” ~ Katherine Mansfield
7 Rene 24 December 2007 at 7:52 pm: Merry Holidays to you and Rhodester and your kids. Thank you for such an eloquent, reflective look at this time of year.

We are sitting here in Florida, far away from friends and family in CA, and it doesn’t feel much like Christmastime. I’ve never been big on this holiday, but this year I am especially wishing that we had our loved ones with us to pay props to our relationships and ties, and party the rest of the year away. Sigh. Some other year I suppose, when this road trip bug has worn off.

All the best to you guys, and have a happy new year.

-Rene, Jim & Jerry

Aww, you’re so welcome! It’s my fervent wish that circumstance & controversy not steal focus from the holidays, much less their intent.

In SoCal, it never looks Christmassy but it’s not being able to see family that’s excruciating. We too are waiting for some other year & utterly empathize for love is the point. It’s never been about celebrating as much as seeing more loved ones than I typically can that made the holidays special. Thank God for special spouses & fur-kids. Don’t let Jerry lap up too much champagne New Year’s Eve..

partner of RhodesTer, property of Taz & Shadow |_|) “There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.” ~ Bill McKibben
8 Jillian 24 December 2007 at 10:39 pm: Merry Christmas to you and to the Rhodester! I am so glad that you have a place to hang your stockings this year… it’s a thrill just to see them up!

All the best to you and the family!

They’re hanging still & we even managed to fill them! Bargain shopping Christmas Eve can be fun.

Tis SO good to ’see’ you; the very best to you & yours too!! Do visit again..

Dorian |_|) “And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?” ~ Dr. Seuss
9 Maureen 26 December 2007 at 10:09 am: Very happy that you and Dave are together in your home with the kitties. And sending wishes for all good things in the New Year!

It’s been a mixed bag of emotions around here this week. Christmas dinner for 12, prepping so the kids have some of their Christmas wishes fulfilled, all the while missing Dad terribly.

I’ve finally found some time to catch up on my favourite blogs and didn’t want to miss the opportunity to stop by and wish you a (belated) very Merry Christmas and all the best to the two of you.

I’m thrilled to have been part of a much-deserved moment taken for yourself amidst making others merry. May some of your wishes be fulfilled too.

Holidays without your Dad are an oxymoronic thing but I know you found a way to honour him.. Much love to his little girl!

hono[u]red to be a favo[u]rite |_|) “Christmas… that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.” ~ Augusta E. Rundel
10 Lorna 27 December 2007 at 4:12 am: Just as I pictured you—stockings, cats, coffee and all.

Thinking of you with gladness this Christmas. XX
11 coffeesister 27 December 2007 at 1:15 pm Twitter: @coffeesister: You described it purrfectly.. Despite it being yet another year without seeing family, it was an exceptionally nice Christmas!

All these comments were a significant part of that; each ‘visit’ adding immeasurably to my holiday. <3 xox

|_|) “It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.” ~ W. T. Ellis
12 Joel 28 December 2007 at 4:58 pm: Forgive the belated comment, but the eloquence of your posts rarely leave anything more to be said :-].

I’d also hoped that I’d have the opportunity to deliver my xmas cheers in person, but it was not so. That said, a most merry xmas to you! Love ya!

Joel

My dear brother, it’s not when but simply that you did comment. That’s quite the compliment too tho’ it always feels a bit like the pot calling the kettle eloquent when it’s family..

Speaking of family, I can’t believe I missed yet another holiday season with all of you but I do feel more connected now that mum & both bros have been here. Thank you for completing the triad’s presence & keep coming back!? I love you too!

the other sibling |_|) “When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things — not the great occasions — give off the greatest glow of happiness.” ~ Bob Hope
13 pinkerton 30 December 2007 at 11:55 am: seriously…your “homelessness” was a bed you and your lazy dreamer husband made and ought to lie in. can you truly justify “hijacking” a friend’s adoption fund and cry about how homelessness would adversely have affected your CATS? how long now until dave finds a reason that this job “isn’t for him” and you send out another thinly veiled request for other hard working people to bail you out?