Christmas Recovery

"One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things."
- John Burroughs

"People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas." - Anonymous

"The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated."

- William James

Christmas is the family holiday, for one day the world feels like our collective living room, and we want everyone to share in the joy. It's all about families gathering, gathering up the lonely, and seeing to it that every child has a present, every person a festive meal. Now New Years will be about our friends, about excess, and that all-important special other; we all want someone to kiss as the old year ends, someone to look forward with as a new year begins. Welcome to limbo week. Slowly the shoji screens of our life slide into place for the next performance of living. So take a moment to take a bow. All you people at the airport, all of you responsible for the explosion of Christmas in your domestic sphere - and for it's clean up; here's to us, all of us. And if it's a bit early in the day for a libation where you are, I say have one anyway, in the spirit of Christmas, of Hanukkah, of Kwanzaa. Take a break from the treadmill to take a look around. You've done pretty well this year, all in all. . . . Cheers &

A L O H A! Cloudia