Tis the Season

                                                   Treasured moments are the ones shared
                                                      with that special person in your life.

Life is rarely a Rockwell painting. Though I have been fortunate to have all my children together for the holidays..  In this day and age where divorces are common place and travels take people around the world, children off to college, and the chance that family all lives in the same neighbor is rare.   The holiday has taken on a different view as we try to hang on to memories of yesterday. I believe our Rockwell expectations set us for a great disappointment. How do these expectations take root?  The media, society and sometimes it is what we are taught or how our parents provided for us.
My own emotions are toyed with around the holidays as I live with the true Grinch of not just Christmas but the holidays in general. Each year I tell myself I would rather hibernate like a bear than prepare for the holidays, but than one of my children will pull on the strings of my emotions and whether you call it responsibility or guilt, I begin to set the wheels of life in motion. For isn't that what a parents job is to create memories?
Though the Rockwell paintings provided us with a image of a traditional holiday, I think it is important to realize that holidays come whether or not we create the expect visual. The images of the elderly in nursing homes, the homeless in food kitchens, students who couldn't make it back home, soldiers that are over seas, employees, doctors, etc . There are many people who will not be creating a Rockwell painting. Holidays were created in away to document a holiday, celebrate or share in a loving moment, no matter how you celebrate your holiday or with whom, I wish you all a very happy holiday season.

The celebration of love

as document by the heart.

~

I admire the birds of winter,

their lesson of endurance

is amazing.

 

~

Even the tears upon my pillow

fade into the fabric of life.

 

~

Love makes everything possible.

~

Happy Thanksgiving !