For better or worse, Christmas is a time for memories,family traditions kept or lost. This week I was able to resurrect one my mother always had. She'd tape the Christmas cards along the edges of the door frames and before long we had instant decoration greeting us as we passed from room to room. Alas I was always too practical to muck up my door frames with tape and other "solutions" never seemed to work. This year I looked at my white door frame in our tiny hallway and lamented to my husband (the wonderful one, remember) that I wished I could hang the cards up like my mother did so we could see them better and enjoy them more. He considered cork, adhesive, post-it note tape, but finally said, "Just do it. We can always touch up the paint after Christmas if we need to." So now I have this door frame filled with bright cards.(And yes, some have more than one tape strip holding them up.) It serves as another happy memory of childhood Christmases and a lovely reminder of family and friends. I confess I have sent out fewer cards myself this year, sent email greetings and a Face Book post. Yet I love the cards and the emotions they evoke. Now to my website visitors I leave this sorry excuse for a greeting card: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And Happy Hannakah too. May all holidays be merry and bright, filled with love and light and pleasant memories that we'll hold on to forever.

I had another* opportunity to be a guest blogger for a Christian writer friend of mine, this time with some Christmas/December reflections for her post, Dawn's New Day. I'd already described here at my own blogpost the special meaning of my family star that sits atop our tree every year. This time I shared some reflections on two of my very favorite ornaments which are pictured here in this photo: a soft-sculpture baby Jesus made and given to me by my cousin Pat decades ago and a small sign I received from a teacher friend of mine when I first started working with her. Its message is pretty clear as you can see. I HOPE I can share the link to the blog here so you can easily visit Dawn's New Day and read my story. Here goes (You know how tech-challenged i can be!):
 
http://networkedblogs.com/rvZqJ?ref=nf


*I'd shared some November thoughts last month; here's the link to that one: http://blog.dawnaldrich.com/search?q=November

     For as long as I've been married (40+years!) and had my own family Christmas tree, It's been topped by this "ugly" plastic star that had adorned the tree when I was a kid. I figure it's got to be near 70 years old. (I'm much younger of course, but I figure the parents must have had it for years before I was born.) I remember my dad and I picking out a live tree and his stringing the lights when we got it home. All in all some very sweet memories and since I was the "last to leave" when a big tree became too much for them to handle, I got the star. A treasure, ugly or not. But over the years the attachment part broke and my industrious husband applied one "band-aid" after another to keep it going. Then this year we decided it just wouldn't do. The night-light attachment to keep it lit was heavy and the plastic star just couldn't stay put.
     With some sadness I bought a replacement star this year, but lovingly placed the antique one in my china cabinet with other Christmas decorations. End of story? Not at all. Because today a routine trip to the hardware store yielded a solution. (Aka small miracle?) In the Christmas decorations department, my husband spotted this single light at the end of a cord. He suggested we try it on the old star! Despite some alterations he'd had to do on our artificial treetop to accommodate the new star, he persevered. With several trips to his workshop, he got the old family star attached! I was standing back, keeping my hopes tamped down in case it didn't work. but of course it did. When he stepped away from the tree and I saw my star back where it belonged, tears filled my eyes. Of course I gave the hubby a kiss and told him he is wonderful. (He really is!) 
     Connections like this-- to my family, my parents, and my past are treasures for sure. This little Christmas miracle just underscores how little blessings can mean so much. I have to believe my mom and dad would have loved to see this unfold. Hey, who's to say they didn't?