thanks to those who created and shared another wonderful holiday season. As time passes, it becomes a more daunting task, overwhelming me as an assignment rather than a sincere gesture. Ironic since my first blog article was about the etiquette of writing “thank yous”. I have a list of business tasks and phone calls to make, cookie dough in preparation of baking cookies and “eleventyninethousand” other things going at once and am putting all that aside to write my mass “thank you”.
First, I wish to thank you, my readers, for your cherished feedback since I began writing creatively this past year. Your comments and memories are as pleasant for me as remembering my own! Social media like Facebook has put me in touch with many familiar old friends and introduced me to many additional new ones. Through these mediums, I am able to share my experiences and knowledge while gaining even more from you. Thanks Charisse for your personal instruction how to best use these mediums. Thanks Beth for ‘hooking me up” with this technology in the first place, and the lap top with which to put it in motion. I should also thank 
your husband Jim, for keeping my equipment and software updated so that I may participate functionally. I also will thank you for feeding us unbelievably well throughout the year. Beth procures culinary gifts that exceed any expectations she herself may have and presents a feast of surprises every time we are in their presence. Some of these inventive recipes of which I have boasted over th
e holidays are featured on Windespherewitch. When Beth is involved, there is always food whether at their home, our home or her Sister’s home, where we reveled in the annual solstice supper with friends and family. This year really rocked with additional folks I had the opportunity to meet as bartender! Good food, great fun and the most excellent gingerbread brow
nies, Molly & Ellen! Thanks so very much Ellen and Peter for your warm hospitality you generously bring here to share every winter from southern CA. We also appreciate your giving us Sting’s Christmas CD “If on a Winter’s Night”, to which I am currently listening for inspiration. For those who are not familiar, this music was recorded during winter of 2009 in an old Tuscan home, Ceilidh style, with a group of Celtic musicians and their authentic instruments while gathered around the kitchen fire drinking hot beverages to keep warm. Your Solstice and Christmas get-togethers set a similar scene created in your cozy traditional hearth-centered home overlooking the valley.
The Christmas cards flowed like molasses until just the week before, when a deluge of greetings in colorful and sparkly artwork donned our bookcase from top to bottom. Among them were letters from family with whom we have not seen in many years. What a treat to hear from them and read about the rich memories of Christmases past; like our German Christmas tree, that we shared every year throughout my childhood. I have already composed responses to you all to which I keep adding thoughts as they resurface in my heart and mind. Of course, we received most recent kids’ photos from dear patients and of our own grandchildren. Daughter Laurel’s family continues to grow with their 3rd son due in March. Eldest son, Brandon, turned 5 yesterday and Christopher 3 on Christmas Day! That is one heck of a present.
Shortly into what is already proving to be a pleasantly hectic New Year, I came home one night to find a message in my Facebook inbox from someone I was not familiar, about a subject that helped mold me into who I have become. “Robileth Lodge” it read, which would be pretty cryptic for anyone who has not experienced Robileth Lodge personally. A really long story shortened, another family
had also spent summers in Ontario, Canada as guests at the exact same private place we stayed from 1967 into the 1980’s. Never having known this until now, I have been spending time nearly every day reliving the precious memories with new friend “Robileth Lodge Karen” and her brother, swapping stories and photos of many summers past. Having just missed each other in passing by a day or even hours, what a gift it is to find someone in space and time to relive those life-shaping events. This has been the inspiration for me to send “Happy Holiday Thank You Greetings” in January in the future. The New Year typically brings bills and tax information and necessary dietary changes that remind us we may have overindulged. I am thrilled to know so many of you and thank you Karen, for introducing yourself and family into my life. If the film “The Lake House” had not already been written, this would be our story!
As gifts we exchanged on Christmas Day, Beth especially expressed the pleasure and ease with which she magically found her presents for everyone this year. “They simply presented themselves” she proclaimed, like the perfect cocoa pot for our early am 
coffees or late evening teas in the privacy and peacefulness of our bedroom. It occurred to me that the other side of giving as well as receiving was the cheer we miss hearing about all the wonderful things others receive. As Beth reviewed her list of thoughtful gifts, I found myself as excited to hear about them as she was obtaining them, so on this “Thankfulness Thursday”, I wanted to share my many gifts with you too with wishes of spreading that same holiday cheer into the New Year and New Decade this 2010.
Special note and thanks to Facebook friend of a friend, Mr. Higgins, for sharing the concept of “Thankfulness Thursday”.
