Christmas is… a time capsule. A puzzle box. Buried treasure. Tradition. Comfort and joy. Orange pomander balls and stockings. Christmas trees and puddings. The season bursting with tantalizing historical questions. Questions about how we celebrate the birth of Christ and the underlying whys, and what they say about us. The ordinary points to the extraordinary. […]
Today would have been my grandmother Marie’s 100th birthday. She passed away on January 19, 2006 and was buried a few days later in the blistering cold. Born in 1920, her mother Theresa died when she was six years old of a brain aneurysm. She grew up in her Aunt Ida and Uncle Andrew’s home […]
This is the time of year when we compare summer and winter, the usual pros and cons, and brace ourselves for the downward plunge into grey skies, shorter days and snow. It usually comes down to a matter of personal preference: heat vs cold, light vs dark, ice cream vs hot tea, mowing the lawn […]