Holiday challenges

There's frost on the boardwalk, and clouds in the sky: it's New Year's Eve, and lined up down the edge of the hallway (so our blind dog won't trip over them) are 25 packages, one for each year of life for our oldest daughter, who was born 25 years ago today.

And as you can see, there's a picture of her from each of those years -- can I just say how much fun I had putting this together?  In that one on the right she's dressed as a shepherd for that year's Christmas pageant -- SO CUTE!!!  Now we're just waiting till she wakes up and opens them -- which may be a while, as her younger sister had a party here last night, keeping all of us up til the wee hours of the morning...

In other news, I created a present for YOU yesterday, as well -- just a short video of the hymn I posted yesterday, because I hated sending you to the River City website with all its ads and clutter.  I've replaced the link in yesterday's post, but you can watch it here as well:

And then a neighbor came over to purchase the last two Sandspit calendars (I make them every year, just for our little neighborhood).  We got to talking about photography, and the end result was I decided to create a video out of a slide show I put together on photo composition and editing for the Episcopal Communicators Conference back in 2008.

So life is full and rich with potential, as always -- and what a great way that is to start out the New Year!  Of course we still don't know how our day will play out, or if there's supposed to be a party at our house, or what the new year will bring: all of us are in transition right now, and so we're just taking things one step at a time; trying not to get too caught up in worries about what the future may hold.

But that does mean -- especially when you add in my husband's new cold and my recovery from that pre-Christmas fall -- that we all have a tendency to snap at each other: nothing serious, but it's not particularly pleasant either. It's a very small scale war, but... well,  I've had to apologize several times in the last few days for losing my temper... so even if I find other family members irritating, I'm not liking myself much either!  I'm hoping we're ready to declare a truce... And, having said that, now I'm hearing that John Lennon song in my head:

"So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young 

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear 

And so this is Christmas War is over
For weak and for strong If you want it
For rich and the poor ones War is over
The world is so wrong Now
And so Happy Christmas War is over
For black and for white If you want it
For yellow and red ones War is over
Let's stop all the fight Now."