Just Enough For Christmas

Got into the Christmas spirit this year in a big way, and still I'm running around catching up. Still finishing the final draft of a book I started some years ago, a paranormal, and it's taken me some time to get my head wrapped around the hero again. But boy, once he got me. He got me.

We opted for a huge tree this year: 13 feet. It has a nearly 10" base, so it had to be carved up at the bottom to fit in the largest tree holder they make (the one without cables and having to screw into the base of the tree). Took a home visit and custom cut at the base after we got the thing home, and 2 strong men to get it into my living room. But boy, what a treat!

Over the 45+ years I've made a home here, I've collected ornaments and I finally got a tree that could hold nearly all of them. I said nearly. Yes, you are not reading this wrong. I will still have an overflow. After years of saving broken ornaments (arms and legs of elves and cowboys and supernatural beings, fruits and noses and flowers off favorite ornaments), I finally threw out the "bone yard" and it nearly broke my heart.

But I have too much in my basket of Christmas, and I'm a bit on an emotional overload. The grandkids came over last night and we decorated the little trees I have always done to absorb the cute small ornaments my mom had. Her sad little tree didn't survive the multiple moves my father did after her passing.

Christmas is a hopeful time. We're reviewing what happened this year and celebrating the wins, remembering the happy events and mourning some of the losses. I will never forget what it feels like to be a child on Christmas morning, which is something I share with many of you.

I am grateful for the blessings of family, readers, the business I've built and the stories I've told. I hope to get better and better with my writing. I'm always seeking to be relevant. Reviews are up and down and with them come my emotions. But that's life. It comes with the territory. I found my childhood teddy bear had survived our house fire and was brought in along with some other things from our storage containers. I had Teddy cleaned and looking like new. He has no eyes left, but I think he sees plenty!

I regret little except saying I love you more to the kids, to my parents and grandparents. I regret the arguments I've had with some, the way I took offense when I should have walked away. I don't regret being generous with my heart or with my love. It always comes back ten fold.

I pray I won't leave the tree up until Easter like we did one year. I marvel that I actually got so busy with my Real Estate business that I let that happen. I think the rest of the family somehow thought it was my responsibility to get it down, and eventually I did, after my 10-year old told me he couldn't invite any of his friends over anymore because it was so weird to see that dead drooping tree in our living room.

I hope my children will soften their opinion and remembrance of me, like the fuzzy pictures the "Glamour Shots" do that smooth out all the wrinkles in our skin and make our eyes and hair glow like diamonds. I'd like to be remembered as larger than life, a family legend that brings forth lots of tall tales and exaggerations of the fantastique! We've made a tradition of that, like most of you do as well, telling the crazy stories of us, and how we all survived the craziness, the wonder and beauty of just being alive.

I hope you experience everything you wish for and everything you really need. I hope you live long and well, love hard and forgive more than you love. I hope that all the miracles of the season, and the good fortune available to you will fall like sugar crystals all around you.

And that you live in the magic of love and what love can bring for the rest of your life. I plan to do all I can to enhance that experience with my stories, if you'll take the time to read them.

With love,
Sharon