It is hard to believe it is Christmas Eve. Time flies for this old man. When I was young we always had lutefisk on Christmas Eve. I don't know how the tradition started as it came from the German/English side of the family. My father's side, Norwegian/Scotch Irish, wouldn't touch the stuff. I tried to convince Jamie that we should follow the lutefisk tradition, we tried it a couple times. She was mostly disparaging. She had rude things to say about this delicate dish. We have had oyster stew for Christmas Eve dinner these last several years. We all love oyster stew.
It looks like we are going to have a brown/green Christmas. Our snow has melted away and the forecast snow of the last few days hasn't materialized. We have had rain with a little snow mix off and on. The tradition of lights and general merriment is a good thing this time of year. I don't know if we are more overcast than usual but we have only seen the Sun for one and a half days this last month.
We have our big family get together on Thanksgiving. That is when our kids and grand kids get together and celebrate. Christmas we have a mixture of relatives and friends from the neighborhood over. We have a great dinner and a very jolly time. This year Noah and Naomi will be here and four friends who live near by.
My chores are much easier now that the chicken coop is within a short walk from the house. I have hardly seen the sheep since the snow melt. They are roaming around the pasture looking for green sprigs that were underneath the snow. I don't miss the snow. Sure it is nice to have snow for the holidays, but we generally have four and often five months of continues snow cover. I don't mind having a break.
Many of us are trying to give up the past. We have come to believe that real peace and joy comes from being in the present without encumbrance of past thoughts and ideas. It seems that giving up angers and resentments from the past can be accomplished by forgiveness. A forgiveness ritual might be performed again and again but eventually we get over the hump and the anger or resentment doesn't come to mind anymore. There are little behavioral things and thought patterns developed in the past that are harder to expunge. We might not realize how much we might be a slave to past patterns. These can be little emotional triggers. Things that make us gloomy or cause minor irritation. Harder to discern is how we irritate others with some behavior that comes from some judgement we carry from the past.
We can give ourselves a break from all that past flotsam and jetsam. We don't need it. The Holiday Season is also the end of the year. Time for renewal. Let's convince ourselves that we deserve to be at peace. Let us accept the idea that Peace, Joy and Love are our birthright and any aberration from that state is folly. When we find ourselves in less than a holiday spirit it may be an intrusion from the past; let it go.
In this moment, there is only Love.
Have a very, very joyous Christmas!
Love and Peace, Gregg
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