My Favorite Week

I love the week between Christmas and New Years the best.
I love that I don’t have to clean my house for a whole week – letting the gifts and goodies overtake the house and letting everyone enjoy them.

I love the post-Christmas sales where things are 50% off. I always get my calendar then (this year going for the File-calendar for the second year in a row) and a good book that didn’t make it under the tree (this year: Audrey Hepburn.)

I love getting to enjoy all my new treasures. Like my books – I always love to receive books for Christmas because the week after I always have time to inhale them properly.

I love that my kids are home, and that I am home and that the week begins with friends and family and great food (Christmas Eve) and that it ends with friends and family and great food (New Years Eve.)
This year I am especially loving a much less dramatic entrance into the New Year than last. No church drama. No work drama. Just a low key beginning. That is Hope to me.
I celebrated by buying this Nativity set that I have been dreaming of all season. It was in a store near where my little shoppe is. Every time I went to check on things in the shoppe, I would drive by and peak in the window and see if it was still there. Yesterday I went in and ta-da! There it was waiting for me, and at half price no less. So I bought it, did a little jig and brought it home.
I love this Nativities simplicity. I love that it only comes with the basic figures – no large gawking crowd of shepherds and wisemen and sheep to arrange. Just an intimate family moment, sweet and memorable. For me it will always represent the hope and peace that comes with a inauspicious and quiet entry into the New Year.