Val Home

"Val home" was written on my mom's calendar twice! in the past month, as I got to see family both for a belated Thanksgiving and an early Christmas, and now Mike and I will be spending our first Christmas--AND Christmas Eve AND day after Christmas!--together here in our cozy apartment. It is partly due to the nostalgic time of year and partly "just Val," but I have been near tears with gratitude and awareness of my blessings this past month with its happy chaos of family-visiting, package-mailing, card-writing, ornament-making, and gift-hiding. Have you heard Tom McRae's heartbreakingly lovely version of "Wonderful Christmastime"? ♫ "We're here tonight. And that's enough." ♫ I have had that and Wham's "Last Christmas", another favorite, on repeat-play this week. (And did you also catch my dear George Michael's statement to the press on the news today? He has just been released from the hospital following a month-long stay for pneumonia. He is another favorite of mine, the voice of an angel, so note that I have added "George Michael alive and home for Christmas" to my growing list of Things Big and Small Making Val Weepy This Week.) It is my first Christmas ever spent without my family, but I have learned that Christmas (and Thanksgiving) and home and loved ones are things you carry with you, work schedules and distance and time apart be damned.

Mike gets out of work in just a few minutes, so soon he will join me back in our cinnamon-scented nest where I am now mixing up another batch of salt dough to make more ornaments and finalizing my grocery list before I head over to the store. Tree-purchasing and tree-trimming tonight--this is the latest I have ever gotten a Christmas tree, but so be it, and we will just leave it up through January to make up for it--Chinese food-eating and ornament-painting later tonight, and the rest of the weekend will be spent baking, cooking, and celebrating. ♥Christmas!♥ And all this rare free time with my Mike!! ♥Home!♥ 'Much more to say and share, but in the meantime, I do hope you all enjoy peace and love these holidays, as well.

♥ "Love is a force
more formidable
than any other.
It is invisible --
it cannot be seen or measured,
yet it is powerful enough
to transform you in a moment,
and offer you more joy
than any material possession could." ♥
~ Barbara DeAngelis