IT IS THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS

This is the first Christmas in a few years that i have been well enough to really enjoy all the wonderful fuss and bother of it all. I have not just one tree, but 3!! One in my bedroom, one in the living room an done outside the door. Mischi has bows and bells on and is making a musical noise whenever she walks by. My Germanic and Danish heritage is fully represented in my home and that of my family.

Christmas eve we have a Danish Christmas dinner: roast goose with prune and apple stuffing, caramel potatoes, red cabbage and green vegetables...a nice colourful feast. The dessert is a fluffy rice pudding. In the pudding is an almond, whoever gets the almond wins a mazipan pig.
After dinner we have coffee and cookies and stronger stuff for the hearty ones to fortify themselves for midnight church services. Christmas during my childhood was always a bitter-sweet affair. My Mother would become homesick for Europe and weep a bit over the Christmas box that family always sent. We all still get weepy. Now that i am a member of St. Luke The Physician it will be my turn to say Grace.

I wish all of you the joy and peace of this season and may God grant you all yur wishes.

Christmas wreath
the fourth candle now lit
a hush pervades

Christmas tree
hanging memories
one by one

Lights on the tree
making wishes
this dark night

Still christmas night
the sound of rain
no snow at all

Snow covered temple
lone woman in a red coat
kneels to pray anyway

Grandmother
a blue haze covers
the old eyes
memories come
creeping in