Happy New Year!

Revelry & Reflection

New Year's Eve 2005

Santa Monica, California

We're off for our annual New Year's celebration with our dear friends in California.

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My best friend from college, Angie, moved to Los Angeles with her family seven years ago, the same year we moved to Arizona. Each year since, we've spent New Year's together, alternating between locations. Angie and I have both been with our husbands since our college years, so the guys have known each other for years as well. Our children are the same ages and they have fun and squabble just like cousins. It's become a wonderful way to wrap up each year and ring in the new... and one of my most treasured parts of the holiday season.

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Until I return next week, here's wishing you and yours a reflective end to 2007, and a prosperous new year ahead...full of love and unbridled happiness!

Zoë's Christmas greeting...

Zoë hit the egg nog a little hard during our family Christmas celebration, and we caught her revelries on videotape.

(Actually, I think it might have been Mike with the egg nog, as he's the one playing around with these photos! :-) )

(If you hover your mouse over the photo, you'll see the play button.)

Merry Christmas to all...

Reflections, by Aaron, age 10

My son presented me with this drawing this morning after breakfast, and it surely is one of my very favorite Christmas gifts. I love receiving handmade gifts, and especially from my children.
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As we prepare for celebrations with our friends and families, I'd like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, filled with much joy and laughter. The precious friendship and human connections we share, even across the miles, brilliantly illustrate the true meaning of the season and paint the world's best hope for enduring love and peace.

Blessings,

Rocks in stockings...

I've had a burst of creative holiday energy lately, finishing a few jewelry gifts for friends and family amidst baking Christmas cookies and cheesecakes and dancing around the house to Brian Setzer's Boogie Woogie Christmas with my kids. (By the way, check out his Christmas special clips on You Tube...y'all will love Stray Cat Strut mixed with The Grinch!)
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What girl doesn't love to get some fun and funky rocks in her stocking at Christmas? I thought I'd share photos of a few of the Blue Mango creations that will be finding their way into stockings this year.

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"Malinda" earrings

Turquoise with Balinese and Thai Hill Tribe silver

"Catch of the Day" earrings

Balinese silver

"Thai Tortoise" earrings

Thai Hill Tribe silver & Swarovski crystals

"Bali Hai" earrings

Balinese Silver

"Angela" necklace & earrings suite

Turquoise, Thai Hill Tribe rose pendant, Balinese silver spacers, cones and clasps

I'll be home for Christmas...

My dad (on the left) and fellow crew chief

Vietnam, 1972

My friend Pat and I are riffing off each other today, all inspired by the song, "I"ll Be Home for Christmas", which is one of my favorites. I always get misty-eyed when I hear it. Check out Pat's great blog entry about one of her family heirlooms, a V-mail card.

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Although the song was originally recorded during WW2, its timeless appeal continues across the generations for all of those separated from their loved ones during the holidays. The song has personal meaning for my family as well.

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Christmas 1972, when I was just shy of 4 years old, my father was on a tour of duty in Vietnam. My sister wasn't born yet...so it was just my mother and me for Christmas that year. She put up the Christmas decorations and on Christmas morning, I opened my gifts from Santa. I believe we may have spent some time with extended family who lived nearby. But our main celebration of Christmas waited for my father. Mom left the tree up until February, when my father returned home from the war...skinny and exhausted. I don't remember my gifts from Santa that year, but I do distinctly remember that Christmas celebration and my father bringing home a giant pink stuffed rabbit and a doll that he purchased for me in Tokyo on his trip home. It's one of my earliest childhood memories.

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Years later, when Mike and I were newlyweds and he was an Air Force staff sergeant, he deployed a week or two before Christmas in support of Operation Just Cause (the invasion of Panama). I allowed myself a day to feel sorry for myself for missing out on our first Christmas Day together as a married couple. But then, inspired by my mother's earlier example, and also thanks to a firm, "Get over it!" from her in response to my self-pity (which mothers always seem to be good for!), I decided she was right. Mike and I exchanged gifts and celebrated a belated Christmas around our little tree when he returned home, and the holiday was all the more meaningful.

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The truth is, because of my mother's example, Christmas has never been about a date on a calendar for me. Rather, it's about spending special moments with the people you love. Her devotion to my father and his presence in our family was more important than following herd with tradition or wallowing in self-pity for missing a special day. She taught me that Christmas is about focusing on love, peace and hope, even in a world fraught with uncertainty and turmoil.

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My heart goes out to all those who will be away from the people they love and cherish on Christmas Day. It is a lonely time indeed, to be away from the ones you love at the holidays. But when you think about the words to "I'll Be Home for Christmas", you're reminded that Christmas is a place in the heart, more than a place in time...the love light gleams across the miles.

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I'll be home for Christmas;

You can count on me.

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents on the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me

Where the love-light gleams.

I'll be home for Christmas

If only in my dreams.

Jingle bell rock!

Christmas in focus

December is slowing down. In the next day or two I will wrap my last work obligations of the calendar year. Mike is on break from his MBA program and will be taking some vacation time from work over the holidays. The Christmas shopping is done, as is the social whirlwind. Now it's "quiet time" until Christmas.

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Usually something is always percolating in my head; something that I'm pondering, a project I'm working on, or a challenge I'm mulling over. But not now. Now I will try to observe a time of peace and quiet; gratitude and hope.

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Peaceful enjoyment of home and family. Quiet reflection on my personal accomplishments during the past year--both the triumphs and the fumbles. Gratitude for dear friends and family, the gifts of good health and worldly blessings.

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Hopes and plans for the new year are slowly coming together in my head and in my heart. Are you feeling Christmas come into focus?

More holiday music...

And here we are with our VERY favorite trumpet player...after the school band concert tonight. A future Chris Botti? No solos or one-handed high G's just yet, but we're proud parents!... And he definitely pegs out the cute meter. :-) Hope you're all having a great week...busy, busy here with work and holiday "misc."

Slowing down the world...at Christmastime

With two of my favorite trumpet players

December 2007

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I'm constantly reminded of a sense of social acceleration--we move faster every day. From air travel to the speed of information, at times it seems as though our awareness of ourselves and each other can suffer. Music is one of the few things that brings me back to my center--that calmer place amidst the distractions. Whether it transports the listener or connects people, music feeds a part of the soul and not necessarily the intellect....These moments feel as if they are slowing down the world.

--Chris Botti

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Santa Baby came early this year and brought us front section tickets to see the incomparable Chris Botti in concert last night at our favorite small concert venue. The tickets included a reception with Chris before the show. I'd been feeling a little under the weather the past few days and a mellow, soulful night of live music with my man was just what I needed. Mike and I have been fans of Chris since he first toured with Sting 7 years ago. Since then, his music has been a major part of the soundtrack of our lives. It was a real kick to get to meet him!

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I adore jazz and have a thing for cute trumpet players...In fact, I married one! (I'm hoping the concert inspires Mike to pick up his trumpet more often.) In my opinion, Chris Botti is one of the top 5 jazz trumpet players of all time. He is famous for his one-handed High G. (You can hear it about 3:40 into When I Fall in Love.) To sit 20 feet from him and his band and hear that talent--that rare, precious gift--was truly a transcendental experience. He opened the show with Ave Maria and took us through a string of gems, including his hit Why Not (with Billy Kilson on drums), sexy duets with vocalist Sy Smith on Good Morning Heartache and The Look of Love (which were hits for him with Jill Scott and Paula Cole) and a heartbreakingly beautiful rendition of the Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso.

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Amidst the hustle and bustle of the season, consider giving yourself the gift of "slowing down the world". Chris Botti's new album Italia or his holiday album, December, are the perfect treat. If not Chris Botti, then pull out your favorite holiday album...Put it on when the kids are in bed, pour a glass of wine or a mug of hot chocolate, grab your main squeeze and cuddle on the couch in front of the Christmas tree. 'Tis the season for pause...to slow down and connect to what matters most...love, spirit, peace and gratitude...the best gifts any time of year!

St Nicklaus and the gift of Christmas memories

Photo: Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA)

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My favorite childhood Christmases were not the years I believed in Santa. Rather, they were my middle school years when my family lived in Germany. Christmas is magical there, even if you're too big to believe in Saint Nick.

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I vividly remember our family and school outings to the Christkindlmarkt (or Weihnachtsmarkt), open-air Christmas markets which can be found in most German cities. Lights strung from stall to stall; crunchy snow underfoot; the smell of roasted chestnuts, glühwein (mulled wine) and stöllen (sweetcake) in the cold, crisp air. Vendors sold handcrafted wooden and blown-glass Christmas ornaments as well as Christmas pyramids. A festive atmosphere filled the entire platz.
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We usually had artificial Christmas trees in the States, but our German Christmases featured fresh trees. We lived in an apartment and we would haul the tree up eight flights of stairs, dropping needles all the way, and set it up in the corner of our living room. My mother had not brought our Christmas decorations with us to Europe, but as we followed my father's career around the globe, she became very resourceful. Our tree featured a combination of homemade ornaments, popcorn strings and some new lights and German ornaments we purchased.
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Today, my family still practices many German traditions we adopted during those years. Tomorrow night is our favorite: the celebration of St. Nicklaus Day. In Germany, this is the day Santa visits. The children put their shoes outside the night of December 5th and wait to see whether they'll receive gifts or switches and coal. (Heck, who am I kidding....Mike and I put our shoes out, too!)

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The next morning, we awake to find small gifts from St. Nicklaus. These are small trinkets and schokolade. Sometimes German-themed gifts like nutcrackers or perhaps a book or CD. And always--always!--lebkuchen. I do not have much of a sweet tooth, but oh, do I relish my annual Nicklaus Day breakfast of lebkuchen and a cup of fresh-brewed Jacob's Krönung kaffee. That's when the Christmas season really feels like it's kicking into high gear for me.
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Each year at St. Nicklaus Day, I reflect on these sweet memories and I am filled with a profound sense of nostalgia and joy. I realize St. Nicklaus' greatest gift to me has been a lifetime of memories of those magic German Christmases.

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Frohe Weihnachten!

Photo: DPA

Photo: Shireen

Photo: DPA

Photo: DPA

Holly Jolly Christmas classics...

We had a couple of very rainy, chilly days here. Given that the Phoenix area enjoys 300+ days of sunshine each year, rain is a treat. The perfect weather for curling up at home and watching classic Christmas programs.
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Those of us who grew up in the '70s were treated to some real holiday television gems. My favorite, bar none, was always the Rankin/Bass 1974 masterpiece, "The Year Without a Santa Claus". I'd skip Charlie Brown, the Grinch, Rudolph and Frosty in a North Pole minute in order to see the Heat Miser shake his red-glitter booty in his holiday Disco Inferno. (Am I the only one who thinks he's a dead-ringer for the older, crankier Elton John?)
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As for feature films, "A Christmas Story" is a must-see modern classic. It's hard to select a favorite scene. Who can forget the bunny pajamas or Ralphie climbing back up the slide to petition Santa for his Red Ryder BB gun? This movie, perhaps more than any other Christmas film, transcends generations to capture the true American childhood Christmas experience.
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But I digress. When the weather's cold and gray and I want to warm my holiday spirit, there's nothing like the old vintage Hollywood holiday classics. My whole family loves 'em. Friday night we watched the original 1947 version of "Miracle on 34th Sreet" and my 9-year-old daughter declared it "The best Christmas movie ever!" Tonight it will be either Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in 1942's "Holiday Inn" or Cary Grant (as Dudley the angel) and my all-time favorite actor, David Niven, in 1947's "The Bishop's Wife".
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What are your holiday favorites?