OK, we’ll admit, it’s still too early to post a Christmas blog. After all, eight shopping days remain. We both have an entire work week ahead of us. And there are still plenty of things to do, including buying the duck for our holiday feast.

But we’ve already set up camp at our beloved Loyd Park, complete with Christmas lights and decorations, and we’ve enjoyed three of our favorite holiday films: Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, and White Christmas. We’ve sat around the campfire, indulged in a little eggnog, and even felt Jack Frost nipping at our noses. So it seems entirely fitting that we should begin our Christmas celebration well in advance of the actual day.

We love Christmas. It holds so many wonderful memories for both of us. Of course we  established our own traditions long ago, but we still cling to the many remembrances of Christmas in the distant past, especially our mothers’ enthusiasm for decorating. We’re still moved by stories of generosity and kindness that give the season its hope and joy.

Above all, this is a time of gratitude, and so we make it a point to talk about all that we’re thankful for. We’re grateful for families that tolerated the peculiar child they were saddled with, and that they didn’t warp us too much; for teachers who were encouraging to the unpromising clown and the perpetual misfit who spent most of their school days in mortal fear of bullies; for jobs we truly love and colleagues we deeply admire, despite the fact that circumstances beyond our control could bring it all to an abrupt and unceremonious end; and, perhaps most of all, for the sheer luck of having survived for so long the sort of stupid and self-destructive actions that have been the undoing of too many others. More than anything else, we’re grateful for each other: that we have a capacity for tenderness of spirit and generosity of heart that somehow heals the wounds of cantankerousness and irritability.

Each night, when we sit at table, we lift our glasses in awareness that the world has many good things for us to enjoy, gifts that we did not earn of our own merit. For this awareness, we are most grateful.