Somewhere Rezzy heard, "At my age, the years are short--But the days are long.

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      Not for most of us at this time of year! Way back in October, when REZZY did some catalog Christmas shopping, the holidays looked do-able. Now the catalogs are coming so thick and fast here at Saint Simeon's that a month isn't long enough to look through them - much less wrestle the indecision of ordering from them. (Our own Christmas market was easier and no shipping costs!)

     Ah, well Christmas will come. And the lights, the decorated trees through out this house will have us looking forward to that day which triggers so many memories for each of us.

DEO GRATIA!

     Do you know this quote from Mother Theresa? "Kind words may be short - but their echoes are endless." One to live by as these holidays - these HOLY DAYS approach.

     Anybody know when poinsettias replaced holly and mistletoe as a sure sign of Christmas festivity? Or, when the potted Amaryllis became just as ubiquitous?

     Not that it matters. Real and fragrant or fake and colorful, each is a seeking toward gladness, or  as The Book of Common Prayer says of 

 another rite: 

     "An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." - or at least each holly, poinsettia or amaryllis is a yearning toward the latter.

     Remember when you were little and the Christmas tree was there as if by magic on Christmas morning? Where it had come from, how it got in the house, where did all that breath-taking tinsel and all those balls come from - these were mysteries. They just suddenly WERE!  

     One resident so loved that that she remembers wheedling her family into not dismantling the tree on Twelfth Night.

     She must have been one spoiled only daughter for her father didn't put his foot down. Was it put down in fallen needles? Must have been! - Until Valentine's Day!

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  The shortest day of the year occurs this month. December 21, isn't it? May the seven days before and the seven days after that date be HALCYON DAYS for you.

    Why?

    Because that is what the ancients called that fortnight. HALCYON was the name of the bird also known as the Kingfisher and that bird selected the fortnight for incubation.

     To the ancients, the bird's habit was a guarantee of a period of remarkable quiet weather. HALCYON DAYS became a synonym for PEACE and TRANQUILITY.

     What better to wish you then?

                               May you know

                               HALCYON DAYS