December is upon us and with it comes the rushing and stress of the holidays!  Yet, does it have to be so?  Or do we create the rushing and stress ourselves by believing we must do so?  I'm doing something a bit different this year.  Not thinking of gifts to buy or running here and there to find the right one.  Actually, I've been reducing that nemesis for several years now.  This year, I'm doing something different.  I'm actually going to relax. Take one day at a time.  Treasure the moments with friends and family.  Stay away from stores and bring a bit of a different thought toward Christmas.  Today is a new day.  A new month and I'm going to enjoy the holidays.  I'm going to share stories, poems, and ideas of holiday of spirit and joys.  I hope you like the collection I'm starting.  Maybe read them to your family and share them.

Have fun and Peace to all.

Toward the Winter Solstice

  by Timothy Steele

Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown;
A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree’s elegant design.

Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.

Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;   
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.

And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.

Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19293#sthash.m2cDAsJa.dpuf