Our Christmas was very peaceful with just my mother joining us for the day. I loved it! Teenage daughters with no loss of enthusiasm for the day – the waking up early to presents and this year to my homemade cinnamon buns. They were delicious. (I know, because my mother went back for immediate seconds!)
Martha and I were very low-key on the gift giving as our 25th anniversary trip to Ireland is a gift that kept on giving … we loved it and it is all we could have hoped for.
My favorite presents were from my daughters. Jane (14) who wrote Martha and me a simple yet well-penned card of thanks. And, Lila (17) who shared a short story she had written and some of her favorite poems in homemade booklet. She included May Sarton’s “The Work of Happiness.”
If you haven’t read it, please do. It’s brilliant.
She reminds us that the work of happiness is internal; it’s our very own hidden work. It’s the work of a lifetime. It’s in our relationships and our relationship to things.
She writes, “But where people have lived in inwardness, the air is charged with blessing and does bless; windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.”
How we feel about ourselves does emanate and does affect others … and I do hope and expect … bless people. And, over that, each of us has control.
