I love this lazy time between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  It is the time when I can finally relax and enjoy Christmas.  From Thanksgiving to Christmas, time and responsibilities come at me like a loud, fast freight train.  I cannot work, run, clean, cook, fast enough… and that holiday train catches up to me when, like a character from a thriller, I finish it all just in the nick of time.  By Christmas morning I am bleary-eyed and dizzy with exhaustion. So, this time, this languorous space, is when I catch up on sleep and I eat whatever I want, open a book, shop for a new pair of shoes online with my Amazon gift card, write reviews of the make up received in Birchboxes, and admire my new socks. 

This is when I recharge.  In the frenzy of preparation for this holiday, I seldom get to truly enjoy it, so this time is Christmas to me. Unfortunately, the rest of the world thinks that Christmas ends on Christmas day.  The radio station immediately stops playing holiday music :(.  My neighbors throw their naked trees into the street and take down their lights and wreaths.  I am saddened by this and I turn to my itunes library to continue my personal holiday right on through to the Epiphany on Jan. 6th [and, honestly, sometimes longer].

This is perhaps my favorite time of year because of the feast of possibility. Saturdays are my favorite days for this reason.  They are generally the only day when there are no responsibilities on the calendar, so they dawn bright with possibility.  For an eternal optimist, this is the piece de resistance- possibility in all its glittering glory.  This time of year, when we put the past behind us, reflect on what went well and what went wrong, and then leave it behind; when we look toward a ribbon of road that twists off into the horizon just ever so slightly.. giving us nothing but miles and miles of hope.

So, I spend these last few days of 2015, mesmerized by the lights on my tree.  

This year’s unseasonably warm weather has also found me contemplating the evening sky from Bean’s front porch.  

A new year waiting is the best kind of blank canvas.  Happy 2016!