Wonderful Christmas

So, my stepsister, Hope, told me that they tell the boys if they don’t behave, they’ll turn up on my blog.

I think that makes me the Bloggyman.

But no one is bad on Christmas. Therefore, here is everyone on Christmas morning, enjoying Santa’s bounty. Except for Hope and Galen, who were in the kitchen making mimosas, like the lovely hosts they are. And David, who must have been standing next to me, always by my side.

Christmas was lovely and wonderful. I cooked and baked a whole bunch. We saw family we rarely see and met little Tabitha for the first time.
Time flew by and I can’t really tell you what I filled it with. I wasn’t on the interwebs much and, after a couple of days, didn’t turn on my computer at all. It feels like a slow unwind from my usual life of keeping up. My days are full the way I like them to be, but I run a pretty good pace to do it. To get the blog post done, to get my writing done, to do my day job, to read the blogs and books I try to keep pace with.

At first, it’s hard to relax, to let go of the keeping up. Then, when I do, I let go of everything it seems. One world falls away and only the immediate becomes real.

We writers talk about living in our heads, in other worlds. A lot of the time I’m thinking about what I’m writing, about ideas for the blog or dream-thinking about whatever story I’m immersed in. Over Christmas, I didn’t at all. I think this is as much a part of the writers life as any other – the letting go of it for a space of time.

Now I’m back and trying to keep the ramp-up slow and gentle. There go the important emails answered. Bank accounts checked and reconciled. Here’s a blog post. Now I’ll work on Sapphire. Later I’ll cruise the information galaxies of Facebook, Twitter and the Blogosphere.

But for now I’ll pour another cup of tea from the fabulous cat teapot Hope gave me and gaze out the window.

Happy Holidays, indeed.

Welcome Tabitha!

Yesterday, we made a wish.

And it was granted. Tabitha Claire Beck was born in the early afternoon on October 1, the 40th anniversary of my father’s tragic death.

I was bemused to write that Alison, Tabitha’s mother, is my stepsister-in-law. My own family is so small now that there are very few people in it who are not step- or -in-law, in some fashion. I am a stepmother and step-grandmother in one direction, and a step-sibling and aunt in another.

The beauty of the blended family.

Some people have enough in their core families that they don’t have to let the steps and in-laws in. They keep them on the outer fringes. Forever not-exactly-family.

But those of us with dwindling blood families are grateful for the chance to blend. And in this case, for new blood to change our luck.

For 40 years, October 1st was our bad luck day. A day of car wrecks, broken hips, broken elbows and death.

Now it’s Tabitha’s birthday. Blessings on us all.