God bless us, every one!

Thank you Charles Dickens for reinvigorating we anglophiles with a love for Christmas celebration. At least, I have heard this is to whom we must give credit. The Christmas holiday had fallen out of favor in mainstream English culture until he wrote “A Christmas Carol.” Actually, I am just happy to have been born into a land of immigrants. I love that I have already taken part in Christmas traditions from Holland (Sinterklaas), Sweden (Glugg), Denmark (looking for a hidden almond in a delicious dessert), and some of my own family traditions as well. Tonight I finished reading my nephews Tate and Tyson the book “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” just like my grandmother used to do every year and I had trouble choking back tears, of course, as awful Imogene Herdman wept over the baby Jesus. This is a wonderful story for children.

My nephews crack me up. Four-year-old Tyson and I did some yoga together today (he pronounces it yaga—as in Yahtzee) and Six-year-old Tate announced that he plans to have three simultaneous careers when he grows up: a meteorologist, a food scientist, and a dark ninja. He has asked his parents for a trip to Japan for training.

I arrived on December 26th, traveling most of Christmas Day. I had enough time along the California coast to remember that I find the ocean profoundly orienting. Flanked by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the lights of San Francisco to the east, I had enough time on the runway at the San Francisco International airport to recognize the particular shape of Ponderosa Pines and a sign for “In and Out Burgers” in the distance. The peaks of the Cascade mountain range and blankets of fir trees welcomed me home and I have enjoyed a very green, rain-soaked Christmas with friends and family. This part of the world still carries with it a familiarity that I hold deep within me.

Zambia has no Dickens. Most of the world has never heard of the Christmas Carol. I think it is a profoundly human trait to begin to think of oneself as the center of the universe. And it leads to our undoing. May my eyes be clearer this year and my thoughts more generous.

It is New Year's Eve and like most of you I am amazed that another year is over. My friend Rob said, "The good has been really good this year. The bad has been really bad this year" and I must agree. As the sage from the book of Ecclesiastes writes, there is nothing new under the sun.

Here's wishing you and yours much laughter and courage in the coming year. May we all be better, stronger, wiser, and warmer.