Wishes

Hi friends.

I want to take a minute to thank you – thank you for being here, for inviting me into your inboxes and web searches and lives, for speaking into our little story and making me feel like part of a big, beautiful, brilliant community – thank you.  Fave, Fabes, and I will be off the grid for the next two weeks, soaking up some good family time, some California sunshine, and a whole lot of Christmassy cheer, but before I go, I wanted to send some good Christmas wishing you way.  So.

I wish you moments of wonder, those seconds when you catch a glimpse of something magical in your son’s eyes, or watch your daughter laugh with her grandmother, or slip your hand into your spouses’ while you walk in the snow, or sit down by the fire with a cup of something warm and feel perfectly wonderfully cozy and at home.

I wish you safe travels, airplanes full of well and patient people, well-packed luggage, all the right tickets in all the right places, napping babies, pleasant seat mates, and lots and lots of coffee.

I wish you moments of deep belly laughter with your family, the one you were born into or the one you built out of friendship and truth and powerful love.  I wish you card games and stories and the kind of nights that make you forget to check you cell phone.  I wish you good food and full bellies and generous glasses of excellent wine.

I wish you the endurance to survive one more week of “Santa Baby.”  Seriously, does anyone actually LIKE that song?

I wish you reconciliation in the troubled spaces, joyful memories in the painful mess of mourning, patience where it is most needed, heavenly peace where it seems most impossible.

I wish you second chances and forgiveness and first hugs and first kisses, proposals and renewals and recommitments and giant, impossible, beautiful dreams for this new year.

I wish you the mightiest village, the warmest of places, and the perfect peaceful quiet of kingdom incarnate, of the idea, however far it is from your definition of this season, of a little bit of heaven on earth.

I wish you Emmanuel.  God with us.  God with you.

When we return, we’ll start all kinds of new adventures – a new series that will window us into the lives of some seriously beautiful mamas and allow us to steal all their secrets, a letter to my beautiful girl about the boxes we put people in and her uncanny ability to just plain not see them, some serious conversation about learning to speak the names of the dead, and, always, a whole lot more commiseration over poopy pants and sleepless nights.

We will see you next year.

If you want/need some escape reading to do over the holidays, I’ll be linking some older posts via Facebook, and I’d love your thoughts. 

If this is a lonely season for you and you need to reach out, do.  Email me.  I’m not blogging, but I’m always down for a random night-waking-baby-rocking email chat.  Always.