A Christmas Wish for You

Razzle Cat

Shadow, wearing her Christmas finery

I got a nice email from Liz at the Cooperative Extension office thanking me for my recent posts on Christmas cactus.  Liz is my mentor in the Master Gardener program, and she's been a reader of this blog for a while.  As in many things in this brave new world of blogging and social media, we've never met, although we frequently correspond through email and sometimes phone calls. It was nice to hear that my articles on Christmas cacti helped her with her own. It's so disappointing to have a beautiful Christmas cactus one day and a bald one the next with all the blossoms like shriveled up pieces of tissue paper on the ground.

As we get nearer to New Year's Eve, I feel more and more thankful for this year. My life has unfolded in interesting new ways - Razzle the cat found us this fall and added to joy to our family, I was accepted into the Master Gardener program, I published a new book.   Lately it seems that with each passing day I feel more and more grateful for all the little things in the day than the big gifts.  Last night as we walked the dog, a huge flock of robins - hundreds of them - swirled overhead near the cattle fields, diving down and alighting on the bare branches of the trees arched against a lightly clouded sky.  Sunset filtered through the clouds, bathing the area in an unearthly golden light tinged with sunset orange.  The cattle lowed in the field, and a hawk cried in the woods behind us.  We just paused, drinking it all in, grateful for the moment.

Someone emailed me to ask how I did this - "I want joy in my life, not just happiness," she said.  I wanted to tell her about the robins and the sunset, the hawk, moments like now when both cats are snoring on the quilt and Shadow is snoozing at the foot of the bed.  But it's hard to explain these moments of joy.

People often think that joy is one big goal to achieve, like a finish line to cross. It's more like stringing beads on a necklace.  Little beads like seeing the robins, big beads like starting a new course of study in something I love, little beads like having friends over for dinner last weekend, big beads like planning a trip.

...no presents, but we still love the tree.

This Christmas, what I want to give people is joy.  I'm tired of all the commercialism around Christmas. We stopped giving gifts years ago and instead donate the money to a series of charities we support.  We throw open our house and host a Christmas dinner for neighbors and friends.  We plan a few days of time together, quietly, serenely in the midst of the Christmas madness.

Somehow, I don't think Jesus intended for us to get into credit card debt just because it's his birthday. I think he would rather we give him the gift of joy - by giving it to others.

Merry Christmas, dear readers!