This year, my son comes home the week before Christmas. And first thing each morning, we walk a mile to the neighborhood coffee shop.

One small oat latte, to go, please.

On the way home, he sips the hot drink as we talk. About nothing, really, just everyday bits and bobs. But I feel close to him during this simple ritual.

I know these walks will stay with me for a while.

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Later, I FaceTime with my 89-year-old dad, and he is bright and upbeat. He tells me about all of his political activities and the goings-on at his retirement home.

His face is nearly unchanged to me, his energy is timeless, and his eyes are twinkling with humor.

I try hard to slow down and really listen, and to be present to the moment.

Because always in the back of my mind is the realization that these visits are finite, and I wonder how many we have left.

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On another day, my daughter calls to tell me that her entire family has come down with a nasty stomach virus, and could we please come by and take our grandson out in the stroller.

So we bundle up and pull into their drive, making the transfer from house to stroller very carefully.

I notice how the rosiness in his cheeks is gone, and he seems a bit listless. But he brightens up when we put Bing Crosby’s music on the cell phone.

Then he starts to sing Jingle Bells, with a wide-open exuberance in that sweet toddler voice.

And then we are off – taking in the neighborhood lights and decorations. He is transfixed by the reindeer with mechanical heads that move side to side with beady, life-like eyes.

And when we take him home, he cries and says, go back!, meaning he wants to keep strolling. And who can blame him for not wanting to return to the boring, sick house.

But he finally succumbs to his mother, and goes inside, but not without a teary wave from the window as we drive away.

I want to remember the expression on that little pink face, and recall this whole, sunny afternoon, forever.

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And finally, on Christmas Eve, my grandson insists that I pick him up to examine the creche on our fireplace mantle.

He is fascinated by the animals and the wee baby carved out of wood.

I let him play with the pieces on the floor. He has the donkey talking to the fox, and the angel hiding behind the barn, and little baby Jesus riding the sheep.

Watching him play makes me realize that these pieces were meant for this – they were meant to be brought to life by a little 2-year-old.

And so I savor this little scene of scattered mayhem on the rug.

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Later that night, all my chores done, I lie on the couch, exhausted, with my little black kitty nestled on my blanketed legs.

It’s been over a year since we found him at the shelter, half-starved and with a cone around his head. And now he is my shy, but attentive companion, especially through these winter nights.

He stretches, then darts beneath the Christmas tree, making me laugh as he corners and chases a small bit of fragrant evergreen.

This past year I have loved his entertaining antics.

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The holidays go by in a whirl.

In January, I always find myself wondering where the past few months went.

If you’re like me, you think in big strokes – cleaning and decorating the house, and putting up the tree, or trying some special new recipe for Christmas Eve dinner.

Choosing the right gifts, writing the annual card – all of these things are meaningful, but they don’t really leave an indelible mark.

Rather, it seems to me that it is the small act – the coffee run, the long phone call, the kiss of a tearful child – that will stay with me the most.

It seems to me that it is the small act – the coffee run, the long phone call, the kiss of a tearful child – that will stay with me the most.

So, I want to catch these ordinary moments as they fly by – because life moves so fast, and I want to pay attention to these small things that I love.

These poignant fragments of time, they are like the soapy bubbles that my son waves in a huge wand for my grandson to catch on Christmas Eve – they are so exquisite, so fragile, and so fleeting.

I lie awake in bed, with obsessive thoughts scrolling through my head.

It’s been a long two hours of this:

Was I a good mom?

Can we afford the big remodel of the house?

Why didn’t I ever have a career?

When should I have that hip replacement?

Oh my God, when my grandson graduates from college, I’ll be 82.

I wish I had been better about using sunscreen.

Whatever happened to Mike, my boyfriend from high school?

Sleeping pills are a crutch,

maybe,

maybe not.

Does my dog know that I love the cat more than him?

My writing is stupid.

Why don’t I have a yoga practice?

I hate yoga.

How much longer does my dad have?

Will I get to say goodbye to him?

My upper arms look fat.

I should do yoga.

I love yoga.

I think I see a cockroach crawling on the door frame.

Better call pest control tomorrow.

Is it too late to save the planet from global warming?

How can my husband sleep through all of this?

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Anyway, these nattering thoughts unspool, one after the other. And now I need a break, so I get up to get a drink of water.

And after climbing back into bed, the snarled skeins of worry seem to have come loose, and there is space to untangle them.

First off, I can’t undo the sunscreen thing – it’s just too late.

Second, the parenting issue – that’s too late, too.

Also, I may be around to see my grandson graduate, and for that I will be lucky. Let’s hope that happens.

Next, boyfriend Mike definitely broke up with me, so whatever – what a jerk.

And no, I never had a career, it just didn’t happen, get over it. I’m on my path.

And I’ll call my dad tomorrow.

It’s interesting to me that these ghosts periodically haunt me, but usually with the exact same set of grievances. And I can almost hear them coming when they enter the room, they are so familiar.

They come when I feel anxious, or insecure, or overtired.

I’ve tried to meditate them away, but the scripts are baked in. Simply the consequence of an overactive mind.

In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge faces his mortal demons and becomes enlightened by what he encounters.

After grappling with the years he has wasted, he is finally gifted with a conversion.

I kind of want something like that for me, for some kindly Spirit to guide me through my life and make all things clear.

To absolve things I’ve done wrong, to erase my insecurities.

But really, I am certain that the answers will never come from a ghost. The answers reside within me.

And in the end, I look to the words of the same Charles Dickens, who wrote:

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

And so, I’ll take these words, simple and pre-packaged and ready to absorb into my restless being.

These words are the answer to my questions. They are the answer that helps quiet the late night voices.

They are the answer that soothes me – more than yoga, more than sleeping pills, even more than a talk with my sister.

The answer is easy: the answer is love.

Each season, it seems we have a distinctly different relationship with our outdoor Christmas lights.

When we had babies, the lights were a fun way to introduce holiday symbolism. And through their shining eyes, we travelled back in time to our own childhoods. There was a joy in creating a new tradition.

And then, with the school aged kids, we strung the lights together and helped them learn the ins and outs of de-tangling, and showed them how to drape them just so across the branches.

And then there were the high school years when it just felt like a big chore. With the kids busy and our schedules packed, who really cared about the outdoor lights? What a hassle.

And then, after our son and daughter went off to college, it fell to just the two of us, and it almost felt like the lights were more important than ever.

Our way of saying, so much in your lives has changed, but this stays the same.

Then there was the year we returned from living in Switzerland. Coming off of a pared down living situation in Bern, we were dazed by the excess of decorations and light in the U.S.

And driving down the street, coming home from the airport, we marveled at all of the neighborhood decorations, a little sad to think that our empty house would be bare.

But no, our son Lewis had climbed up on the roof (!) and draped thousands of tiny lights outlining the entire house.

A tear came to my eye, it was like we’d been visited by Santa. And it was like the passing of a torch.

And this year, now that we’ve downsized our house, the temptation is to give up on the Christmas lights – to minimize our traditions altogether.

But I think there is a longing at this time of year, a yearning to bring optimism and light into the cold of Winter. I mean, what a year we have been through, and who knows what 2025 will bring.

But when I walk around the neighborhood I see hope. I see light transforming the night. We are saying no to the darkness and yes to joy.

And now, the thing about having a grandchild is that no matter how depressed and cynical you might be over the state of the world, you can’t stay discouraged for very long.

You see his eyes light up and the excitement rubs off on you. The wonder is huge. Young ones see the magic and only the magic.

And so, today, back at home, my husband heads out to the hardware store with an elaborate plan to construct lighted mesh balls to hang in the tree in the front yard.

And it lifts my spirits. I’m excited for our grandson to see them, to look up and point at the branches, and to tell him that his Poppy made them glow just for him.

In the end, I think the Christmas lights are a reminder to connect with a positive spirit, if I can. But if I can’t, then maybe my sadness can earmark something sweet and rare – the fact that I kept going, and I persisted, even at the darkest times.

Parts of this past year were tough. I look back to the Spring, in the long weeks after COVID, and how hard I struggled to stay hopeful, desperate to hang on to some kind of positivity.

How now, how easy it is, to forget the bad times, when I am well. How hard it is to recall exactly how difficult a day, an hour, even a few minutes was. And how that unique pain of depression can chase all optimism away.

So I guess that this is my hope for the holiday season – not for an erasure of negative thoughts, or an ending to all sadness, but for being grateful that I simply made it through the year.

And that I found a bit of ease when things felt hard, that I kept going even when making an effort seemed futile. That I held on when dark depression was pulling me down.

And maybe this season, as I gaze upon the Christmas lights, I can appreciate both the light and the dark in my year. And that, even for just a moment, I might take the opportunity to remember to feel alive, to feel loved and to feel whole.

Happy Holidays

xoxo B