Christmas Day

What better way to start the day: light the room with the colors of Christmas bulbs, eat warm yeasty breads with cups of frothy but strong coffee...

And of course, the music: always there is the music. Choirs from England (a favorite – from Clare College), and more jazzy sounds and more playful ones – Muppets included. All day long, there are songs.

I sit before the tree now without a thought of what needs to be done tomorrow or next week. All that needed to be done by today is behind me. Only the hens have to make it to the oven. My cooking marathon is near an end.




One daughter naps, the other reads. Their dad has come and gone.

Outside, there was rain, then there was snow, and finally a snappishly cold wind put an end to all that talk of a mild winter.




Gifts opened, admired, loved. One person’s everyday needs and desires recognized and translated into a package wrapped in paper with snowmen. All that's left now is imagining how that gift will follow the recipient through days of work and play in the cold winter that still is very much before us.

The everyday is a holiday Ed is here. If everyday is a holiday, then surely today deserves holiday treatment. He works on a puzzle, then stirs the pan juices that will be incorporated into the chipotle gravy.





We’ll eat our dinner early and head out to a show late and maybe upon returning, we’ll have a second slice of the bouche.




I thought about Ocean and Ocean readers more than once today. Thank you, those of you who wrote messages and cards. And thank you to those of you who, through coming back, demonstrate the same need to find some small grain of pleasure in the ordinary. I hope your holidays were splendid and delicious.