Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas here in our beautiful home. My parents came to stay with us, and my brother was with us for the first time in years. We got the most amazing gifts -a learning tower for Little Bear, and a ton of craft books for me (I'm very into knitting and sewing toys right now, and I was just dying to have my own collection of the best I'd borrowed from the library)...but the best gifts of all were homemade: my dad made Little Bear a rocking horse and a train set (all pine with natural, non-toxic finishes), and my mom made him a string of knitted cotton ducks on wheels.

This is a big deal for my family. We've always been creative, but this is the first year I can think of where we've gone so far to make things for each other. Creativity was definitely a theme even for non-homemade gifts...my brother got Little Bear a whole selection of toddler-friendly art supplies!

Something about today has got me thinking about the New Year. I can already feel the energies shifting...that subtle "next year I want to do X, Y, and Z" feeling. For me, these energies are threefold: I want to be more Present -especially with my little one, I want to create things that make people smile, and I want to Be the Change. I'm not sure what I want to do...maybe knitting for a charity or becoming a Unicef parent, I don't know, but I feel very connected to everyone right now. Yesterday as we were driving to the in-laws for Christmas Eve celebrations I had this sudden, overwhelming sense of the universal happiness and anticipation that was swirling around in the world's energy field. The collective experience of Christmas has never struck me before, but it did yesterday. It was amazing...and it made me truly understand the meaning of "Keeping Christmas through the year."

I hope you and yours had a very merry one. Even if you don't "do" Christmas, I hope you had a wonderful day.