On New Year's Day...

 

...Spencer offered our breakfast prayer.

(After doctoring up his rice pudding with a healthy amount of cinnamon-sugar.)

 

"We thank thee for all the wonderful people who we love,"  his sincere voice prayed. 

All the wonderful people. 
Who we love.

Certainly no crash posting of our holiday memories can quite capture that most important piece.
But it's the piece my heart savors.

(Lucy and her New Year's dime)

 

Long after the porridge is eaten and the silver is spent.

Happy New Year to all of you dear ones. 

Thank you for being so good to us.
So generous.
So thoughtful.
So empathetic.
So helpful.
So wonderful.

From the cousin I hardly ever see who sent us darling Christmas books, to the mother of a dear preschool student who brought salt to melt my completely iced over porch yesterday. And everyone above, beyond, and in between. 
Thank you.

We celebrated New Year's Eve at home together.

I had left our house an utter disaster when we left for Christmas, and when I walked up the garage steps on the evening of Dec. 30, I braced myself for the blow.

 

The mess was still there. 

But...there was no blow.

Just an embrace.

An utterly warm, "Welcome Home."

 

Friends, "There is another world that watches us"* - attends to us  - when it seems to every physical sense that we're on our own.

I am so grateful. 

 

The moment of peace didn't last long.  =) My children, overtired from a week of total non-stop, were emotional and worked up that evening, and I was ultimately glad I could lean on the memory of that real, deep (if fleeting), "This is where you should be,"  moment.

 

Sleep did all of our bodies good and we had a fun New Year's Eve celebration the next day, including our traditional Christmas read-a-thon...

 

 

(which tradition I heartily love)



...as well as the trading of favorite memories.   It's always so fun to hear the things my children remember: 

"That time we got in a blanket and ate soup out there (the back porch) when it was dark!" Spencer said.  I had forgotten that evening.

Lucy's New Year's Eve memory surprised me:  "I remember when Grandpa and Harry came!!"  I was glad she remembered that two-second visit from her nearly grown up cousin before his volleyball camp. 

We went to bed at 9 and woke up to find the almond in the rice pudding (Lucy) and to clean out the storage room/prep for preschool (me) and to continue the read-a-thon (both of them). 

 

(but mostly Lucy=)

 

 

 

I tell you what, if reading on your head isn't a good way to start the new year, I don't know what is!

*Jane Eyre The Musical