Kathleen Botsford

Merry Christmas!

May the Light of this Holy season fill your hearts with love and joy.

Final Give-away

As the days AND the Nutcrackers march steadily along toward Christmas, I would like to share a special blog with you all.  Claudia Cummins has one of the most refreshing 'sips' of quiet inspiration I have been fortunate to stumble upon.  A First Sip is a gentle beginning to the day.  Not stories of her life and children, although she has many wonderful ones on a separate site, but a meditative and gentle beginning to the day. Quite lovely.  I visit often and find no words to describe the delicious calm that washes over me as I breath in her healing energy.  Thank you Claudia.

Holiday Blessings

The holidays are always a very special time for me as I bustle about creating magical memories for my family.  The holidays are also very difficult.  For some odd reason, the 'powers that be' have designated this precious time for some of my deepest and most profound soul work.  Each year, I eagerly look forward to this season, just like a small child waiting for Santa and his reindeer.  And each and every year I am greeted with numerous opportunities to go deep inside.  To pick the scabs off every old wound I have gently bandaged and put to 'sleep'.  While this is part of the journey I signed up for, it can be very discombobulating to keep these separate parts of my psyche happy in their very disparate little worlds.  Christmas shopping and tears do not mix very easily and holiday parties and tears do not mix at all.  But my most heart wrenching struggles surround keeping the "magic" of this Holy season of love and compassion alive for my children.   We all have our challenges and this is one of mine.  The challenge is of course, letting go of any pre-conceived illusions of what the holidays 'should' be and being open to the everyday miracle of what actually 'is'.  As always, I find lots of daily moments to practice, practice, practice.  Holiday or not.

I have been away from the computer for some time now but I have not forgotten my many dear friends and readers.  The comments you made to my post "Craving Silence" brought me much comfort and camaraderie.  Thank you all.  And I have been keeping up with my give-away drawings.  The following readers will be getting a package in the mail soon.  Please visit their blogs.  The power of their unique voices join together in the most beautiful of melodies!

Karen at Cheerio Road, Tami at To Dream of Stars, Christine at Mystic Meandering and Laura at Shine the Divine

Holiday Magic Begins

 

Our holiday season kicked into full gear on Thanksgiving as I was busy peeling potatoes in my bathrobe.  It was an hour before our guests were expected and I wanted to get the 'messy' things done so I could put on my festive clothes with less of a chance of immediate ruin.  

I heard the back door open.  Shit!  Did I mis-state the time for dinner???  I stopped, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop when suddenly, my son's face appeared around the door way.  Of course, I started to cry.  If you follow this blog you may remember Stevie was not expected home for Thanksgiving.  Football practice on Friday morning was instigating our family's first holiday separation.  I was okay with it.  Really.  At least I thought I was until I saw his big, goofy grin, stretching from ear to ear.  He got me.  Big time. 

We hosted three dinner parties Thanksgiving weekend as the kids invited friends and families home for the holidays.  I was so happy to have my 'little ones' home, I didn't put up a fuss at all when they picked out a Christmas tree almost 14 feet tall!  What was I thinking???  It has taken me three full days to decorate it.  More than 4,000 lights took the first day and I didn't even bother with the back of the tree.  My husband built scaffolding for me.  I don't remember being that scared before.  We have had bigger trees when the kids were younger but I firmly put my foot down a few years ago.  Maybe it's my age that has me leery of climbing almost ten feet in the air with nothing to hold on to.  Or maybe it's actually "wisdom".  Anyway, the trees are finished and they look beautiful.  I am chilling a bottle of champagne for this evening when I will plant myself on my sofa to blissfully gaze at the glitter and lights as I dreamily drift on the gentle notes of my favorite Christmas music.  Instrumentals of course.