It’s a little after noon on Christmas Eve. My $dayjob work is done until 5 days hence. I need to make a salad (a palate-cleansing shaved fennel, frisee, and cabbage with cara-cara oranges and red onion) for La Famiglia’s version of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, and I’m already thinking that the late-breakfast I had a few hours ago might have been too much as I anticipate the food that’s coming.
The sky outside is overcast – it snowed last night and it may just snow more in the next few hours. But everyone wants a white Christmas, so that’s OK.
Gifts are wrapped; stockings are hung. I’ve dutifully turned on the Official Norad Tracks Santa site (where an N-95 mask-wearing Santa just cleared the United Arab Emigrates and is on his way to Africa via Saudi Arabia). I’m thinking about the dispensation that Santa might need to get access to some of this airspace, but it’s Santa, and I’m sure he has people – or elves? – to deal with that.
So it’s time, friends.
Whether you look skyward for a star, or look into the flame of a candle, I hope that tonight you find something to bring you hope as well. I believe that 2000 years ago, maybe not on this exact night, but one like it, a child was born who was loved by some as much as he was hated by others, and that’s still a thing. I get that not everyone is convinced. So whatever your reason for the season, I hope that your life is filled with joy and peace – whatever that means to you.
Merry Christmas, Friends.
Sweary Parent Chronicles 
As my dear mother, who loved Christmas more than cake, once said to me, “Two thousand years ago, there was a great mystery and a great miracle. That’s all I know.” Best wishes.
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Love it, Ev. Smart woman, that.
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