celebrating: take two

The second half of this new series. Following each author’s insight on How We Spend Our Time, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. Meg Cox got us thinking about celebrating. Here’s my take.

We pulled into the driveway – our new driveway! – grinning ear to ear, grimy hands on the steering wheel, the same hands that had held the pens to sign the deed on our new house an hour before.

And here we were: home.

It was a gorgeous spring day, end of April, full of sun and budding green. We spread out a blanket on our front lawn – our new lawn! – and made a picnic for dinner. No furniture was moved inside yet, so the soft grass was our table and chairs. And the meal was simple – sandwiches for a quick dinner. But it tasted delicious: a family milestone, a sacred moment of starting a new home.

So when it came time to celebrate one year in our new house, we knew exactly what we had to do. Swing by Jimmy John’s, spread the blanket on the grass, recreate our first meal. As we chewed our sandwiches while the sun set, I smiled at my husband. “We should do this every year,” I said. “To celebrate the anniversary of being here. Being home.”

This is how family traditions start: small and silly. Fast-food on the front lawn – nothing fancy. But if we do it every April, if we repeat the ritual and retell the story of the first day this house became our home, then it becomes a real celebration.

It says something about who we are and what we love. It tells a chapter in our family story.

So many celebrations are daunting prospects for parents: find the perfect presents for Christmas; create the elaborate birthday of their dreams. But I’m noticing that my favorite celebrations with my kids are the small, simple ones. The ones that spring up organically and help us mark the seasons in a special way, unique to our family.

What small celebrations do you celebrate in your family? What unique traditions did you love growing up?

. . .

We’re off to celebrate a big moment in our extended family, so I won’t be posting here for the next week while we’re celebrating together. But I’ll be back soon with the next installment in this series – a wonderful author you won’t want to miss!

And I want to wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day, whether you are celebrated for the work you do as a mom or whether you celebrate the women who have mothered you along the way.

May we all be blessed and be blessings to each other, held in the love of God’s Mothering Spirit…

how we spend our time: celebrating

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Meg Cox, author of The Book of New Family Traditions: How To Create Great Rituals for Holidays and Every Day. Her book is an irresistible treasure trove of ideas for celebrating big and small moments with kids of all ages.

Meg has gathered ideas from families of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, so no matter what your cultural or spiritual tradition, there are heaps of creative, easy, inspiring ways to celebrate and ritualize the moments that matter.

I had long eyed Meg’s book in Chinaberry’s catalog, and when I saw that the book was now revised and updated for its ten-year anniversary, I had to grab it. As soon as I finished devouring the book – dog-earing so many ideas I want to try with my kids - I knew she would be a perfect addition for this series on How We Spend Our Time.

Whether we’re planning a birthday party or wondering how to brighten up a long winter with a new family tradition, this is an important way we spend our time as parents: celebrating. Enjoy Meg’s insights on how families of all kinds celebrate life’s small and monumental moments with creativity and love:

1)     What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

Ritual time is intense time, and it doesn’t have to take a long time to mean a lot. You may spend only a half hour together at dinner, but eating together often, keeping the conversation flowing and having at least one good laugh together creates a very strong bond. I used to pack an enormous amount into 20 minutes at bedtime, including one or two stories, a prayer, and a special good night to everyone in the extended family.

2)     What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

I’ve tried very hard to work intensely while my son is at school, so I won’t be closed off, in the middle of interviews or deadline writing, when he comes home. I also try to model keeping all tech devices away from meals and family time: when we are together, we truly are, together.

3)     What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

For this and my other books about family traditions, I’ve interviewed families from many different faith backgrounds, and I think it’s extremely powerful to have one’s religious faith threaded through all sorts of daily and weekly rituals.

I interviewed a family once that tithed even when they played Monopoly: when you pass Go, you set $20 aside for charity. Now that paper money doesn’t feed a homeless person, but it sure sends a message about making sharing a constant habit.

4)     What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

There are many ways I love to spend time with my family, including summer vacations that usually include some time at the Jersey shore. We are all book-lovers, and enjoy a vacation where we can do a lot of reading.

But as my son got older, into his teens, I really learned to love spending time with him in the car, just the two of us, because it’s easier for teenagers to talk without looking a parent in the eye! This also works if you are fixing dinner together, or dyeing Easter eggs or frosting Christmas cookies, because there is a shared focus and not a parent-clamping-down-on-kid atmosphere.

. . .

Your chance to win! Meg has generously offered a signed copy of her book for one reader of Mothering Spirit. Leave a comment below about a special tradition your family celebrates.

Entries must be received by midnight CST on Friday, May 3rd.

Be sure to visit Meg’s website as well as her Facebook page for more resources and new traditions!

how i nurture my mothering spirit – laura

The overdue last in the series. But hey, when it’s your own blog, you can make and miss your own deadlines. Hope you’ve enjoyed the series as much as I have. Thank you again to all the wonderful writers who shared their stories with us!

Another cold Minnesota night as the lavender shadows of sundown stretching across the glowing white of snow fade fast to sinking black. This time of year I hate to leave the house after dark; winter turns me into a hermit if I’m not careful.

But every Monday evening finds my car winding through the dark along the river road, slipping from small town to small town across rolling fields.

The weekly pilgrimage to yoga.

Yoga is not prayer for me. But my practice makes space for prayer, clears the chaos from my mind, shoves the clutter aside so God can sneak in again.

When I roll out my well-worn mat and begin to breathe deeply, I start to feel the stress of the day slip away. Cranky toddlers who wouldn’t nap. Chores left undone in our messy house. Clutter piled up so high on my desk I feel my blood pressure soar when I open the office door.

I set it all aside, and I sit and stretch. 

The peace of the present moment rises once again to my consciousness. I remember the wisdom of all those saints and sages who discovered that God is never more present to us than right now, that every moment offers the possibility of connecting with the Spirit if we only slow our own scattered minds to turn and remember.

Guided by a gentle teacher, I move and hold and push while others around me do the same. We breathe together, lunge, reach and rest. I love the mix of solitude and community that yoga offers: the reminder that my single life is part of something bigger and beyond.

Yoga stretches my limbs and my limits. How much tension can I hold? What would happen if I let go and sunk into the pose a little deeper, released the fears and hesitations holding me back?

I learn about myself – my physical body, my mental flow, my spiritual needs – every time I push back into downward dog. My view of the world is turned upside down, staring underneath my legs at a room of yogis hanging from the floor-as-ceiling. Especially in these early mothering days, so focused on home and our chosen few, I crave this change of perspective, this flip-side reminder, this fresher view.

Perhaps because yoga draws together body, mind and spirit, it sprang immediately to mind when I started this series. I’m grateful to yoga – and to the wonderful studio community I’ve found – for nurturing me as a parent and as a person.

I have little time for working out in ways I used to pre-kids: early morning sessions at the Y before work or daily cardio classes at the gym. Frankly I’d rather write in my wee free time than work out. But I can’t quit yoga. Yoga is sanity, space, silence and stretch. It is the centering practice of my parenting days.

The metaphors come almost too easy. Balance. Strength. Flexibility.

If only I could stay on the mat, I could stay Zen.

Of course that’s not the calling; we all have to come down from the mountaintop and back into the plains. Every Monday night I drive back across the same winding roads, back home to the people to whom I’ve promised my life.

But I’m better for them, and for me, when yoga nights stay sacred. I’m at peace with the contours of my life, with the God that shapes my being.

how i nurture my mothering spirit – ginny

In the classic girls’ book Betsy-Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy’s mother understands the creative process. She gives her daughter an old trunk to use as a writing desk, a special place where Betsy can sit and be alone and pen stories to her heart’s content.

“Betsy’s mother was a great believer in people having private places,” says the narrator.

Betsy’s mother gets it.

I, too, have a private desk of my own. It’s a brown desk in the bedroom, pushed up against the corner where two windows meet. Ever since my second child was born, it has been the place where I go to pray, to read, to write.

It’s a place that is mine and mine alone: the only place in the house where this is so.

Motherhood is all about sharing: sharing one’s time, one’s energy, one’s body, one’s last Kleenex. I would not have it any other way, because all that sharing has stretched me in ways that nothing else could have done. My two young boys are worth every bit of it, and more.

But, like many of us, I still need a small piece of physical space to call my own.

On the writing desk, I’ve put all kinds of special items and trinkets. There are family photos, a small statue of Mary that I bought in Lourdes, a Valentine card sent to us by a dear friend the year that she died. There is a quotation from Hemingway that always jumpstarts my writing process. There are candles to light and books for inspiration. In the desk drawer is a rosary – two, actually – for times when I need the soothing repetition of prayers I know by heart.

The desk is like a little shrine of all the things that sustain me: family, friends, faith, reading, writing.

It’s my own space, and it is capable of working wonders. A few candlelit minutes there in the evening are enough to slow my breathing and help me pick off the burrs of stress that routinely attach themselves to my day.

Whether I pray, or read, or write, or just stare off into space, that desk reminds me that I have an inner life worth cultivating and tending. It’s a reminder that although I am a wife and a mother and a teacher and a writer, underneath it all, I’m always me.

And I’m a more peaceful me when I let myself be nourished in – and nourished by – this special private place.

 . . .

Ginny Kubitz Moyer is a writer, teacher, and mother. She is the author of the new book Random MOMents of Grace: Experiencing God in the Adventures of Motherhood. She blogs at RandomActsofMomness.com.

a mother’s prayer for ash wednesday

God of Ash Wednesday,
whose hands first gathered dust to create us,
whose Spirit breathed new life into brittle bones,
whose fingers traced the sand to save a sinner,
take the dirt of my life -
the tempers lost,
the doors slammed,
the complaints muttered,
the harsh words thrown,
the dark doubts seethed -
take all these flaws and failings
and burn them blazing
in the fire of forgiveness.

Gather the dust that lingers, 
the ashes streaked across your healing hands,
and trace the ancient cross
once again across my forehead.
Press its humbling love deep into my mind and heart,
let it sink into my soul
reminding me that life is fleeting as the dark grey dust.

And when I see the same stark sign of sin and death
marked on the soft faces of my children,
let me breathe in the beauty of now,
this present we have together,
this gift of a life shared
no matter how dark or dry it sometimes seems.

Let the touch of another's hand on my bowed head
remind me of resurrection,
of hope and promise
that we are mere dust
and yet more -
beloved in your eyes,
our chins cupped in your hands
with a parent's loving touch,
our faces traced by the same fingers
that forever bear the prints
of every ashen life they touch.

Amen.

on surprises: lenten and papal

For over a week, half a post for Ash Wednesday sat waiting for me to finish it. And it started like this:

Anyone else feel like the gentle green of Ordinary Time just got yanked out from under their feet, and now they’re sitting plop in the purple of Lent, scratching their head and wondering how we got here so fast?

Is it even allowed to be Mardi Gras before Valentine’s Day?

Or am I the only anxious one who still has Christmas thank-yous on her to-do list?

From whence it wandered into ramblings about how maybe the fact that the dates for Easter and Lent change every year keeps us on our toes, on edge even, makes us more mindful or less likely to lull into complacency.

Which bumped into Scriptural allusions about how you know neither the day nor the hour.

(Which was apparently going to wrap back round to parenting or family life or something else that this blog claims to be about.)

But then we all woke up to the papal game-changer of the century (or rather, six centuries) and the looming start of Lent seemed even more surprising as we all sat around puzzling and pontificating (ha) about how we could possibly have a new pontiff by the time these forty days finished.

So now what are we supposed to do, I wondered. I thought about scrapping this post completely. But then it struck me that if this news is the Hayley’s Comet of ex cathedra announcements, I better scrape together two words about an all-points-bulletin Catholic news story that will surely never come again in my lifetime.

And that was precisely when it hit me:

Perhaps the early Ash Wednesday and the unexpected announcement from Benedict aren’t so far apart after all.

Both remind us of mortality, a sobering reminder that we are all dust and to dust we shall return.

Both mark the beginning of a time of great change, a season of renewal.

Both capture the popular imagination in surprising ways.

Ever try to find a parking spot at an Ash Wednesday service five minutes before it starts? Good luck. Catholic churches are crammed on this unofficial holy day. Every year I notice more and more people packed into the pews. Something about this simple penitential practice, this smear of ash on foreheads, touches us deeply.

Ditto Benedict’s decision. Sure, yesterday was full of ignorant chatter and conspiracy theories and snarky Catholic jokes. But it was also full of surprising resonance, of reporters and religion professors and regular church-goers agreeing that resignation could be wise, that retirement could be well-deserved, that respect was due to a powerful leader who knew when to step down, when to take leave of a calling that was ending.

It’s the eve of ashes, and it all feels surprising. But it’s always jarring when death interrupts life, isn’t it? When reminders of mortality upend our neatly planned calendars of The Way Things Are Supposed to Go?

Weren’t we were just waving our palms to welcome him in? Are they really so quickly burned to ash again?

nurture your mothering spirit – kate

This winter I find myself not just a mama, but a pregnant mama.

This two-fold mothering is more exhausting than I ever would have imagined, and I find myself struggling, especially in the depths of winter, to find ways to nurture my mothering spirit.

What works best for me is to dabble in a variety of ways, allowing my energy level to determine what fits best at any given time. As a religious person, I find that each of these ways is also prayer for me.

1. I write. Writing helps me get my emotions out on paper (or on the screen, as the case may be). I write to my daughter in a notebook I started when I was pregnant with her; I write in another notebook for the baby that grows inside me now. I write blog posts, intimate emails, and personal journal entries. Every day, I write.

2. I sing. Throughout my life, song has been the most profound vehicle for expressing what lies deep in my heart. Psalms and table songs from Christian liturgy resonate with me, bringing back years of memories. In my sung memories, I find solace and hope.

3. I read. I read my daughter’s favorite books aloud, savoring each word and basking in her joy. I read for my own pleasure, taking a half an hour on public transit or an hour after work (when my husband is up for it!) to do nothing but steep myself in a story or an idea.

4. I create art. A dear friend of mine introduced me to collage journaling recently, so I have saved scraps of this and that for creating page after page of colorful, multi-layered visual art. I also sketch, albeit poorly, and sometimes my favorite art is the kind I make with crayons on plain paper with my daughter.

5. I walk. In particular, I love to walk in areas bursting with trees, whether residential neighborhoods or forests. I love the scent of life long-lived, a smell even winter can’t break. The shadows cast by tree branches comfort me, and the light that dances around the shadows delights me.

6. I  take pictures. I remember one snowy winter evening in my childhood when I went outside, armed with a film camera (digitals didn’t exist back then!), and I snapped photos of my backyard. The sinking sun glowed red and pink and orange, casting sparkling hues off the untouched waves of snow. I managed to capture startling beauty with that little camera of mine. Even now, when I am outside, I look for small wonders. When I seek them, they find me.

7. I practice hospitality. There is only one thing I  love more than dinner with my family: sharing a family dinner with guests. I love bringing the sacred liturgy of meal-sharing into my home, sharing the stories, tastes, touches, sounds, smells, and sights with dear friends. I love the preparation, the extra care, the special recipes, the ability to pull together a rich, familiar, memorable feast.

8. I laugh. And this is one of the many ways I know I married The One, because my husband manages to make me laugh every single day. He is particularly good at getting me laugh when I am grumpy (and as a tired mama, grumpiness develops more often than I’d  care to admit). In addition to the laughter that my hubby miraculously inspires, I have voice messages saved from my best friend who, in the first three seconds of any message she leaves, produces some bit of unique silliness that has me chortling for hours.

9. I pray to G-d as Divine Mother, Daughter, and the Love that binds them, reimagining the Holy Trinity as a wholly feminine Presence. (In keeping with Jewish tradition, which I greatly revere, I do not write out the vowels for the names of G-d.) I also love the metaphor of G-d as Father and Son, but by praying to G-d as Mother and Daughter, I find myself immediately and overwhelmingly in profound understanding of the way G-d is in relationship to the world. If G-d loves Her Daughter the way I love mine, I can imagine no greater source of awesome wonder.

These are some of my favorite ways to honor my holy, marvelous role as a mama without forgetting the rich person I was before I became a mama. Even in winter, if I take a moment for myself in one of these ways, I end up enveloped in warmth and light.

. . .

Kate Allen is a Christian mother of two: one outside the womb and one still in the womb. She writes about her mommying at Corn Dog Mama and writes about all her other favorite subjects at Life Love Liturgy.  She has an M.A. in Liturgy and Scripture from Saint John’s School of Theology*Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. 

how i nurture my mothering spirit – maureen

As a mother to three young children, I am rarely afforded an opportunity to do something just for me. It seems like I always have questions to answer or mouths to feed or messes to clean.

But on chilly winter days I try to carve out ten minutes to brew a pot of homemade chai tea for myself. The kids never get in my way: they know if they are good they’ll enjoy a tiny cup, too.

Chai tea reminds me of India, a place I have visited more than once, before kids and grown-up life consumed my every thought. It was and is one of my favorite places on earth, and whenever I indulge my chai craving I fondly recall my time in a spicy and hazy and colorful land.

I brew the chai in a small saucepan on the stove, but I strain it into a beloved Irish tea pot given to me by my soulful grandmother. With every pot, I think about my relationship with her and the many Irish women who came before us. The tea connects me to my roots.

The tea pot is missing the lid (my son turned flung it across the room, cracking it in two). The spout is thoroughly chipped. It is tea-stained on the inside. In many ways, that tea pot is a metaphor for my life: haggard but enduring, dependable and beautiful, imperfect yet…perfect.

Homemade chai requires an array of exotic ingredients. While I’m sure my recipe is far from authentic, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Fresh ginger is one of my favorite flavors – I work it into many recipes on a near daily basis. I whisk raw milk and raw honey into the brew, simple ingredients that reflect my concern for the environment and my dedication to real foods.

Making homemade chai gives me a chance to nurture my spirit and reflect on things that matter to me. And sharing a cup with an eager 2 year-old makes it all the more sweet.

Homemade Chai

4 cups water
7-9 whole cloves
½ cinnamon stick
A few whole peppercorns
1-2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and smashed
3 black tea bags
A few shakes of ground cardamom
2-3 tablespoons honey
1 cup whole milk

Bring water, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns and ginger to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.

Drop tea bags into the pan. Stir in honey. Shake in the cardamom. Let the tea brew for 3 minutes. Remove tea bags.

Increase heat and whisk in milk. Bring to an almost boil, whisk again, and remove from heat. Strain into a tea pot and serve.

 . . .

Maureen Smithe Brusznicki is a wife, mother and friend to Mother Nature. When she’s not playing with her kids, experimenting with homemade cleaning products or cooking in the kitchen, she likes to blog about living a healthy and simple life at Homemade Mothering. Maureen has also ventured out into the business world by starting her own line of cloth diapers called Terra Baby.

o come, be born in us

Yesterday the O-antiphons of Advent began.

But mine started early, driving home last Friday on a snowy freeway, catching the afternoon news after a day of meetings.

Oh God, no. Oh God, not again. Oh God, not children.

So many words have been spilled since Friday, and yet I keep struggling to voice how deeply this news wounds. As a mother, of course. But deeper, as a person of faith who tries to make sense of God’s ways, who wonders how we can respond in turn.

It was the familiarity of Sandy Hook that shook me up. The day before the shooting, a school was bombed in Syria, killing sixteen, half of whom were women and children. But that tragedy was a mere blip on the evening news, the daily digest of the continued slaughter of the innocents. My husband mentioned it over dinner and I shook my head. “I can’t handle Syria anymore. Too much. I can’t handle it.”

But now, school heaped upon school, bodies heaped upon bodies, babies heaped upon babies, I keep thinking of Sandy Hook and I keep thinking of Syria. As I finish my Christmas shopping, as I wrap presents, as I write cards. Everything seems surreal in the sight of parents sobbing over tiny coffins. Every year I wrestle with the consumerism of the holiday, feeling lonelier and lonelier as I whisper this is not what Christmas means. But this year, the contrast feels starker than ever.

. . .

Today was the first day I dropped my boy off at school since last Friday. As I rounded the car to open his door and unbuckle his car seat, I suddenly felt my heart leap into my throat. How was I going to leave him here? His safe little preschool, in the small town clap-board church, loomed large in a darker world where everything seems dangerous now.

I halted, hand on the handle, wanting to dash back around to the driver’s side, slam the door shut and squeal out of the snowy parking lot. Flee back home where everything felt safe.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

So I breathed in cold, crisp December air. I opened the door, bent down and smiled. “Let’s go, my love! Time for school!” False cheer in my voice, fake grin on my face.

I pulled his hood up over his small head, tucked his mittens into his coat sleeves, trying not to cry as I thought about parents doing the same routine on last Friday’s morning drop-off.

“Do you know how much I love you?” I asked as he smiled up at me. “I do,” his quiet response.

“And do you remember who’s always with you, in your heart, so you don’t have to be sad or afraid?” “Jesus,” he whispered.

“That’s right. God is always with you.” I hugged him extra tight.

Why did I need to remind him today? Did I need some small sense of protection, some meager assurance that if a murderer burst through the doors of his preschool, he might remember love in the midst of fear? So sick, the ways our minds spin right now, scared and wounded in the face of unimaginable suffering.

But still I walked him across the icy parking lot, swung wide the door and swept him inside. His lovely teacher greeted him with a warm smile as she welcomed him downstairs. And against every fiber in my being, I turned and pushed the door open wide to leave.

I started to tear up as I left the parking lot, memories rushing back of the first day I left him there, the first time I left him with a sitter to go to work, the first time I realized he was no longer snuggled up safe inside me.

How can I do it, over and over again, I wondered as I drove away. How do I keep pushing my babies out into the world?

And the answer came clear and quiet: I have to do it the same way I first birthed them.

Through my own inner strength. Surrounded by the support of others. Leaning into the grace of God.

This is the only way I know how to parent. Maybe it’s the only way I know how to live in this world. It’s surely the only way I know how to celebrate Emmanuel this year.

Remembering that Christmas is not something I do, but something that was done by God, for all of us. 

Remembering that in so many corners of the world Advent is always held in this tension: a small light flicking amid death and violence and fear.

Remembering that the Nativity story starts with one scared mother, birthing her baby into a painful world, bearing light into utter darkness.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

advent: an at-home retreat

One Sunday in early November, I started making plans for Advent. (I’ve learned I have to prepare to prepare or else I lose Advent under a pile of wrapping paper and Christmas cards.) I thought about what I’d like to do to enter into the season this time around. More prayer? More writing? Less rushing? Less buying?

Yes, sure, always, definitely. But how?

The thought that sprung to mind and clung there desperately, yelling to be noticed was this: I want an Advent retreat.

Silence and stillness, rest and reading, prayer and poetry - all the things I love most about Advent are what I love about retreats, too. Time and space apart to encounter the grace of God around me, to recenter and recharge.

But I didn’t even need to glance at my calendar to realize it was a laughable prospect. Every weekend in December was booked months ago with company parties, family celebrations, our own traditions. Sure, it probably signaled a spiritual problem that I couldn’t free up a day away. But the reality of my life right now is that I don’t have time to hole up in a peaceful retreat center and soak up hours of reflection all by myself. I wish, I want. But I don’t have.

In true fashion I moped about this realization for a while. I banged a few pots in the kitchen, got cross with the boys, started stealing joy out of the corners of our day. And then it hit me: why not have an Advent retreat at home? If I simply stretched out a retreat over the whole season, I had all the time and space I needed. As long as I did only one small thing each day.

So I sat down and made a list of all the practices and activities I love about retreats. Some were self-care: take a walk, take a nap, journal. Some were spiritual: do centering prayer, go to Mass, reflect on Scripture. Some were simple: light a candle, listen to music, breathe deeply. And some were just laughable: go to sleep, do no housework, enjoy a meal that someone else cooked.

I wrote each activity on a piece of paper and placed them into a bowl. I decided I’d pull one out on each night of Advent, since a few require a bit of preparation to make possible. However the Spirit guided my retreat practice, I’d go with the flow. Even if it meant dragging my kids to daily Mass or working a walk into a bitter cold December day. Advent’s about openness, about preparing mindfully but remaining open to God’s surprises. And I could jump in, one day at a time.

Late last night I pulled out the first purple slip of paper. And laughed out loud. Because my retreat will be starting with tonight’s dinner being prepared by my husband. (Who only half-grudingly declared that he was going to start his own Advent retreat of having his feet rubbed every night, so long as we were shoving our spiritual practices onto other people.)

So here we go. Advent’s here, and I’m retreating. In the mess of my home, in the corners of my calendar.

Care to join me? (Even if your significant other doesn’t cook?)