cardinals and saints

let me begin by saying i am not a scrooge. not scrooge before nor after his eventful evening. i’m just a pragmatist with a dash of humbug. we try to keep the commercialism, waste and politically correct aspects of the season to a minimum here at duross & langel. but the holiday season is for me, the time i most love having a store. i enjoy the shoppers, i enjoy making wonderful soaps and gifts for people, i love the lights. christmas day however...please let me sleep-in and snuggle the day away with james and the pups. christmas day means it’s over. done. the staff has gone home to their families, store closed, me tired, case closed.

the beauty of being the youngest (and usually the most selfish) child is my ability to follow my own bliss. i have no children and therefore, i have always felt (gleefully) that i have no roots that bind my feet to the ground of a traditional holidays and should therefore, be exempt. but i always went home for mom.

this is the second christmas since my mom and dad died. with the exception of the year i lived in san francisco and the year in key west, i’ve been fortunate to share christmas with my parents forty-one times. christmas will never be what it was but it can be wonderful just the same. james and i have decided to travel over the christmas holiday in the coming years. we want to visit sunny beaches and snow covered mountains. we want to create some new traditions of our own. this year however, we’ll be spending the holiday with our families and sharing one of my earliest and happiest memories of my mom with all of you. my mother loved cardinals. just the sight of a red cardinal against the back-drop of an evergreen tree would make mom stop and smile. for each of her kids and grandkids, it was a bit of magic in her world that she shared with us. our store decorations this year were chosen in memory of my mom and all the magic she brought to my world.