A Christmas Rose

Oh Christmas morning... it was a good one this year. Lots of laughter and jokes. Sure there was some drama getting here, but hey.

I didn't get to leave NH until Dec 22, the day before my dad's birthday. The airport went as well as can be expected, and Sunday was so full of odds and ends and running around and insanity that we found ourselves at 5 pm without a dinner for my dad's birthday. That's when the Christmas miracles started happening. In the space of 2 hours we were half way through a "thrown together" surf and turf dinner of puff pastry wrapped steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions, smoked salmon on toasted french bread with cream cheese and capers, and a shrimp cockail. Not to bad for a day's work. Oh, and a tiramasu birthday cake.

But my real Christmas miracle? Last night, when we were rushing to put everything together and we took a step back and realized there was no center piece. I went and harvested our bounty of oranges and lemons and put them into a little basket and that's when I spied it: the most perfect, big fushia colored rose, perfectly round and untouched. We hadn't done anything to the rose bushes in weeks. It's rare for these ones to bloom much in December as is, yet there was a Christmas rose to tuck into the basket with everything else, a crowning glory over it all.

Roses always make me think of love, and all the love that surrounds this time of year, and the dirth of love in some of the things at my school, and the glow of the five of us girls in our "apartment" of a common section with our yellow walls and Christmas tree and silliness, and how we made up for all the bad that was existing outside that tiny space.

My love to you all.