These twelve months weren’t easy to handle
From obits to fake news to scandal
One thing that’s clear
Is we *need* a new year
We’ve had about all we can standle!
Monthly Archives: December 2016
A Christmas paradox…
“Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”
(G.K. Chesterton)
Holiday feelings…
I was talking with a friend today about our feelings toward Christmas.
She observed that most people she knows claim either to love it or to hate it. Some take special joy and comfort in the trappings of the season. Others carry them as a weight, fraught with negative associations, something more to be endured than enjoyed. (A few try to ignore the holiday altogether.)
My friend found it refreshing that i don’t have strong feelings about the season in either of those two common directions. What i do take from it, i take quietly.
When my children were little i delighted in making the season delightful for them – more because of people than things, though. There was no worry about them discovering the ‘truth’ about Santa, because in our family he was always a winked-at fiction — like being ‘in’ on an inside joke.
Building a snowman…
“Building a snowman is great for family bonding and even better for teaching your kids about the ephemeral nature of existence!”
(Stephen Colbert)
Change vs discovery
One of the most common pieces of advice you hear about relationships is to avoid trying to change the other person. Be yourself as well as you can, and accept the other for who they are.
When you first begin to get to know a person you are newly attracted to, you are, of course, putting your best self forward. And you know they are doing the same.
The time you spend together — whether you call it ‘dating’ or something else — gradually reveals more of the other’s as well as your own authentic self within the safety of developing affection for each other. You most often cannot know immediately whether a relationship will work out, as sweet and exciting as the love-at-first-sight idea is.
At the beginning, the compatibilities seem obvious, comforting and enticing.
A Hansen Chronicle 