He’s here, I said to myself, the moment I felt him slip from my body and the doctor said ‘It’s a boy’ before they whisked him away from me to clear his lungs from the traumatic start to his life. My body tried hard to reject him that last week of pregnancy, tried to rebel against him but medicine persevered and he slipped from me and straight in to my heart with his first feeble cry.

I was gone, lost in a love that I had no idea about. It was four in the morning, April 19, 1994 and I was utterly exhausted, sick and surrounded by a medical team that was caring for both of us. But I reached for him and they finally laid him on my chest, lungs cleared, perfect and pink. His tiny eyes narrowed when I spoke to him and he looked at me hard as if to say ‘Oh! That’s who I’ve been hearing all this time!’ and I felt him sigh, and relax against me. ‘You’re mine. and I’m yours.’ From that foggy moment on, he’s been in my heart.

And now, he’s 18. At some point in time, this was adulthood. But not now, and not because I want him to stay with me, to never leave me, to not grow up or move on or not need me. This point, this stepping stone has been the goal from that long ago moment that he was laid on my chest, instead of within my body, and both of us have been working for this jumping off since the moment he emerged. He was a life I was given, an honor bestowed on me to raise him. My almighty Father trusted me with this one life and I’ve given him all of me. The lines between us have gotten longer with each passing year, but that tether will remain, a bond of blood and a lifetime.

I’m at this turning point as a parent, without guilt or remorse over what did or didn’t happen in the last 18 years. I am an imperfect human being, and I’ve made my share of mistakes. I’ve raised my voice, showed my wrath, disappointment and despair to him. I’ve let him know when I’m unhappy with him, but never ever in those long years have I ever let go of the love I have for him. I’ve been clear to his heart that his choices can upset me, his words can hurt me and his actions can disappoint, but it never ever changes the fact that I love him with all my heart, that he can’t do anything that will make me love him less. This he knows. And it makes forgiveness easy.

I’ve held him when he’s needed it, I’ve let him go when he wants. I’ve fed him well and taught him life skills and given him a foundation and a sense of humor. I’ve shown him boundaries so there’s no surprises later in life. I’ve taught him to walk and to run and to play on his own, not as a matter of pride, but as necessity, as his autonomy and ability to walk away from me is vital for a full and rich life. I’ve worked outside the home, and I’ve been a stay at home parent. I’ve taught him to stand against the odds, to face the giants, to walk away from a fight, to voice his beliefs and needs and wants. I’ve left him in the care of providers who’ve given a piece of their heart to him, so I won’t lose a part of me. He’s been a beloved member of my family, surrounded by loving aunts and uncles from birth, then, blessedly, a new family at the age of eight full of cousins, more aunts, uncles and a loving grandmother. I’ve raised him alone for eight years, then with a loving Dad for the last ten. I have no guilt over any of it. Not a moment of mommy remorse that I couldn’t be there for him every single moment, that I didn’t do enough. No one can. But his tether remains, as it always will. Nothing I’ve done, or didn’t do will ever change that.

He’s on the brink of something big, this boy of mine. He could do anything, and everything. I have no idea what’s in store for his life, but I know he’s destined for some amazing works. I can see it blossoming under the surface. And I look back on the moments of confidence that have built over this life of his, and of mine and I see the stepping stones to the here and now. He’s on the springboard, ready to jump, glancing back over his shoulder for me, making sure. I’ve held his tiny hand as he walked, ran, biked, skated and leapt from tree branches, the side of a pool and off the edge of a boat into the ocean. All these moments mirroring a final jump, the last time his fingers will slip through mine before he strides ahead.

He’s 18. A man, but a child. An adult to society, but still in need of care and direction. He doesn’t need me all the time, or even most of the time, but he needs the presence of me, and he’ll come and stand nearby, glancing at me, seeking me. I know these signs, and I stop, focus and connect until he walks away again, another moment of that confidence carved in stone. He does need me, but so much less than yesterday, last week, the past 17 years. What he needs now is to just know. Know that I’m there, whenever. Wherever. However.

I should know better than to mope about the seasons in Minnesota; just as soon as you think you’ll never surface from the drudgery of Winter, endlessly bleak landscapes and brown for as far as you can see, Mother Nature pulls a fast one and flips the switch to Spring, complete with unbearably beautiful weather – in MARCH!! – and a drenching thunderstorm and rainfall that soothes your soul like nothing else.

And with the warmth, the rain and a pending change of attitude from the Nothingness that landed on me these past weeks (and dare I say, months?) the green that’s hidden in the Earth all year long, even through the ghastliest cold, suddenly bursts forth, coaxed from it’s slumber by 70′s and low 80′s, and sunshine that feels like it belongs in June or July. Whatever the heck happened in the past week in our fair state, it was miraculous. Utterly miraculous.  The ice went out on area lakes at a record rate, the sun shone hot and you could literally watch the Spring plants burst from the ground. I sat on our patio in shorts, sipping wine at 8:30 at night on March 17th. Clearly unprecedented. But blessedly, it tore through the fog, ripping away the Nothing and filling it with a bit more hope.

Spurred by the coming Spring, and buoyed by a {hopefully} changing outlook, I have quickly shed all manners of Winter, like flannel sheets, dark colors, knee-high boots and frosty mornings for a lighter, fresher approach that includes spotting the first Crocus, trimming away last Fall’s detritus in the flower beds and eyeing the soil in the garden to see if any of the previous seasons bounty will decide they’ve got another go of it. And in my head, I’m plotting.

Thankfully, the kind folks at Red Envelope have given me something to help spur on my dreaming.

I’m way beyond the stage of creating cool Easter baskets for my child, but if you love putting together something extraordinary for your own Easter gifts, you’ll find dozens of choices from Red Envelope. This gorgeous little ceramic herb garden was a perfect choice for my Southwest facing window in our kitchen, and a terrific option to begin some herb seeds that will eventually transplant directly in to our garden. The herb garden gives you everything you need, including soil, seeds and a sturdy set of pots to put it all together. It would be a lovely gift for anyone with a love for cooking, and a sunny window at home.

It’s my birthday. I’m 48. It sounds odd to say; 48 years and plenty of life gone past.

And being 48, there’s a lot of other things far easier to accept too; such as Me, with a capital ‘M’. Confidence comes with age, that settling in to who you are and where you’ve landed in life; the comfort level of accepting your quirky oddities, the off-beat traits and nuances of your personality is much easier, as is being completely at ease with running your life in a way that is important to you, and not to anyone else.  I fight against always wanting something more for my life, but the farther I get in it, the easier it becomes to see the glory of what’s around me, and how much quicker I find acceptance with where I am. This life I’ve got is pretty good. I’ve spent a lot of my 48 years striving for something better, and I’ve struggled with seasons of that life that have been disheartening, bleak, and very cold. Something internal within this heart of mine lies a yearning that may never be fully satisfied. I’m ok with always wanting something more, as long as I know in which direction to let it loose. That comes with age too, with being 48.

But 48 doesn’t come without loss, either. There’s been dozens of jobs with hundreds of duties that have given me incredible experiences, both good and bad, many, many places where I’ve lived (again, good and bad), milestones in years and passages that have come and gone, the loss of my mom and my sister, friends who have come in for a season and faded, relationships that tore at my heart. All of these life experiences have a way of leaving painful scars behind. I’ve struggled so hard through the darkness of these experiences, hopeful the despair will lift and I’ll feel upbeat and entire once more; and sometimes the losses, the pain and the sting of a bad experience still tug at my soul on occasion, whispering in that quiet tone of memory ‘Hey! Remember me?’ and I finger the scars carefully, recalling the agony and seeing how growth springs forth through healing, a metamorphosis that transformed me, bringing me closer to Me, to 48. Loss changes us forever; years pass before we realize that breaking the chains and running free, while embracing our new normal is what really makes us whole.

All that ever stays the same is change, isn’t it?

I used to hate my birthday, and would never tell anyone. I’d take the day off work, home alone and quiet about it. Somewhere though, I realized that I was missing out on something huge; a day to celebrate Me. Of all the millions of possibilities that could have occurred between my parents, there was only one Me that eventually did; one set of DNA that makes me unique, no one before me and no one after will ever be Me. Why wouldn’t that be worthy of celebrating??

“Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth.” 
― Rumi

January 23rd, yesterday, I strapped on my cross-country skis for the first time this winter.

This Winter, waiting for snow cover deep enough to kick through has nearly killed me in anticipation, especially given that last year I was out almost every week between late November to well through March. Every snowfall that came our way found me holding my breath, anxiously awaiting the perfect amount that never came.

Certain activities are just part of who I am. Cooking, for one. But this, the strapping on of tiny thin skis, grasping the little poles and facing an open path of fresh snow, wind in the trees and clouds scuttling overhead is also a part of me that goes back to moments in childhood that seared to my brain like fire. I don’t even know how old I was the first time I put on the skinny skis. But I was a kid, and our school class went to a golf course one winter day, lush with a endless expanse of unbroken snow and we all were given those skis, the long poles and funny shoes and we set out over the empty golf course, where it clicked within me.

And in repeated winters, over growing years, those endless snows spread out in front of me as I faced them, tall poles in hand, face to the wind. Then at some point, they just stopped. But the call within me never left and finally several winters ago, I urged Mike to get ski packages and join me on the trails. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.

Because the first time  I headed along a trail, pushing every muscle from shoulder to ankle over the snow, I felt that thrill again. I felt the flood of oxygen to every working muscle. I felt the quiet cold air and saw those dancing clouds. I felt alive again, working with muscles that still held the perfect memory of how this was done, even though it had to be more than 20 years since we’d moved in this way. I marveled at a body that remembered, when I had nearly forgotten; marveled at muscles that snapped into recall, pulling memory from some long ago moment in time. And I wondered why I’d stopped.

There is a tiny little park near our house; hardly a spot on a map but it’s flat, and just large enough to make for a perfect workout. I carve a trail around the perimeter, and go four, five six, sometimes eight laps or more around that park. It’s enough to make my lungs pump fiercely. It’s enough to drench me in sweat. It’s plenty, and it’s close and it’s 45 minutes to an hour of intense cardio work. If I can do this a few times a week, it’s all I could ever ask for from Winter.

The snow flies, and I hear the siren call from the trails. Yesterday was that call, and barely a half hour after I was home from work, I faced that empty park, with a wicked cold Easterly wind on my back and stepped in to my skinny skis. The first path over the snow cuts my trail, and every lap gets easier as I go. My lungs engage, my muscles warm, the wind doesn’t seem so bitter and Winter doesn’t seem all that long anymore. It’s just me and the snow.

It’s Just Write Tuesday, Version 19.0.

See anything new???

A new year is a good time for change. And a good time for a re-design, whether with your life, or with your blog. I’ve been swerving back and forth over the past year on what the focus of this blog really is, and it’s pretty clear that it’s been changing a lot. It’s gone from strictly recipe focused to opening the door, just a glimpse, in to what goes on in my head, my heart and my life. So it’s really not a food blog any longer. But yet, it still is.

My on-line friend Lisa posted something today that blew me backwards a bit. And when I righted myself, and read it again and again, it sank it’s teeth in to me and held tight. She’s gotten so far away from where her blog had originated that she contemplated shutting it down. {{and haven’t we ALL been there, at least once or twice??}} But then a friend of hers said “This space has become more of a savings account for things you like, rather than purely recipes as it was.”

Well, that’s what blew me backwards because it was exactly what my mind was trying to find in regards to this space of mine. So, in addition to a new, fresh and modern look, with some more muted color schemes, I also changed the tagline of the blog. See it over there on the upper right side? It used to say ‘the evocative fare and delicious stories of a passionate cook’.

Now it just says what this treasured space of mine has become: a blog of food and life. Because when it comes down to it, there is no life without good food. And there is no good food without a richly varied life.

I’ll be updating the Recipe Index a bit more too, but to start, I wiped it clean of really old posts, with recipes that are no longer relevant, and photos that made me cringe. If you go searching my site for a recipe, I want it to be the best one I can offer as that’s the least I can do. And if you ever come across a dead link, please let me know and I’ll set it right again.

We’ve also got icons for my Facebook page if you wish to keep updated on my posts that way, and another one so you can come and hang out with me on Twitter.

Ready for another spectacular year?? I am!!

There’s no resolutions, no expectations for the year ahead. There’s no ‘To-Do’ list for 2012, rich with lofty goals and making better all those little things that make me who I am and there’s no Bucket List. Definitely no Bucket List.

But this morning, as I sipped my coffee and watched the sun rise over the neighboring roofs, much like I do each morning, what came to me was a word: mindful. And I began thinking of all the ways that being mindful could benefit the 12 months ahead. More than making resolutions, more than tackling a Bucket List of items to cross off before I die, more than the desire to drop a pants size once again (sigh….) more than any of that and even more important than any of that is the need to be mindful to my life and all these little areas of it that slide up against one another. The job. My family. These incredible friends. The cooking. This blog. My need for space and nature. The desire to keep my body from stagnating with age. My deep need to learn, stretch, grow and evolve, still.

I need to be mindful of all of that. Mindful of the hours I spend at my job, and that it always, always lifts me up to step inside those doors, don the deep blue chef coat and do what I do, even when all I’m thinking about is being home, snuggled up with a cat and a book.

I must be mindful of the foods I place in my belly, to know that the best ones give me the best feeling inside, that the wrong ones seem to insult me, pushing my head in the wrong direction, and sadly, make me want more of the bad, less of the good. Funny how hard that is to fully understand and accept what my body so clearly knows.

There needs to be mindful thought to the interactions I have with others; to not be selfish in our discussions, to be mindful of their needs and wants, to meet them on their terms and convenience even if it means I drive across the city to them, to sometimes just close my mouth so they can open theirs. To embrace and accept them as they are, where they are and who they are. Celebrate the joys, empathize with the sorrows, support the new endeavors, cheer on the small victories. Mindful of watching, learning and gently cradling what we have, these friendships that lift me and flutter within my heart.

I must be mindful that a story exists in each day, that a simple photo can capture more that words can express. Mindful that a few hours outside can make me understand God far more than anything else, that a charged phone goes a long way in grasping tight this daily shuffle of life and light, and even a short walk around my house on a sunny day can find so much simple beauty.

My cooking. This blog. It’s all important, and worth some thoughtful attention. I need to remind myself that it’s an ever-changing, evolving, rotating place of food and life. I need to be mindful of stretching and exploring the means to nurture and feed, that it’s not only body, but soul. And heart.

Mindful. No resolutions. No Bucket List. No outrageous expectations. But mindful thought, interaction, growth. Grace.  Always mindful grace.

I debated a recap type post, to ring out 2011 with panache and style, but let’s face it….. those aren’t my strong points, regardless of how you look at it. I’m pretty basic and down to earth. And after 5-1/2 years of blogging, recaps are sort of old hat.

And there’s no list either, of stellar accomplishments I’ve set down for 2012. While I love the idea of making positive change, and growing a bit more of myself each year, I don’t publicly declare those. I just try and make some little changes, in baby steps and in the right direction, and I realize that my human-ness will always get in the way of these, every single year.

And this blog, really, wasn’t the highlight of 2011. While I discovered a whole new level of health and well-being this year by giving up meat, it felt so simple and easy, like I was meant to be here, filling my belly with good things. Kind of akin to unearthing a pair of beloved gloves you thought you lost, pulling them on so familiar and solid. I think I’ve belonged here, feeling this good and so energetic, all along.

The best part about this past year? My friends. My amazing, beautiful, talented, funny, touching, warm, engaging and trustworthy friends. These people were but a breath in the air last year at this time; something there, but not really, and poised on the edge of 2010, facing down a new and full 12 months ahead, I had no idea that within six weeks of this year beginning, on a very cold February night, how my life would change so dramatically. That so many incredible doors would open, that these smiles would become so familiar, that the truth of an honest and loving friendship would sustain me so well. Who knew? One month you hesitantly attend a huge social gathering of fellow food bloggers, and suddenly the rug of your normal life is yanked from underneath, but a hundred hands reach out to help you stand, in a brand new way. Could I even begin to describe what that feels like? This beating of wings inside my heart, this joy that’s been quietly administered? I’m more of who I am, because of who they are.

May you be blessed with the gift of honest friendship, now and always, and may 2012 be full of dreams realized, love and laughter.

{{photo from Google images}}

I waken, I connect, then move through the motions of prep for my day; a lunch for later, breakfast for now, then a shower, fixing my hair, some makeup and a trip in the car, mostly without noticing anything. Not anymore. Light follows me in, then darkness ushers me home.

I move through my hours, work hours that either stretch on endlessly or fly by in a flash and I don’t notice the little things, or sometimes I do. The pretty purple coat, the lovely glittering pin on a collar, the purposefully ugly Christmas sweaters worn by the staff at the coffee counter, brightly cheerful and festive. I’m too observant for my own good sometimes, but then moments pass and I realize I haven’t seen anything at all. Not the pleading eyes of two cats that adore me, not the dust settling in the corners, or clinging to the high walls in the kitchen, not the Jade plant, observing it’s annual Christmas tradition of bursting in to bloom.

And life feels like it’s whirring by, a blur of events that I’m not noticing. My world opens and shuts, morning to night from daybreak to sunset and I go here and come back from there and share a meal, then climb the stairs to collapse before it begins all over again. My friends go places and enjoy themselves and I see it all happening and I think “Why not me?” and then I’m too caught up in what I’m doing to even really care all that much. But I do care. Because the Jade plant knows when to unfurl it’s tiny pink flowers, showing off to celebrate the season, and I seem to just watch the clock to make sure I’m not late, carefully folding the blue coat for work, making sure my socks are all clean and my pants aren’t dirty and I face towards the garage and I go. And I return and then do it all again.

Can resentment live with gratitude and not mess it all up? I’m so grateful for this job that I am so good at, with people who are strong in spirit and mind, funny and yet focused, ready and willing to help. I’m so blessed by my work, the customers with their questions both silly and serious and opening one’s eyes to the wonders of amazing food. It couldn’t be more perfect for me. But it takes me away from my life right now, with it’s rush here, go there and be on, on on all the time, with a smile and clean hair and a professional manner. And I struggle with resentment that I can’t enjoy it all. Next year, I say to myself, will be easier; I’ll know more about the job {{because this is my first year at it, I remind myself about a billion times a day}} and I’ll be better about the balance and the focus and noticing the goings-on around me.

I want to strip these blinders off, suffering from whiplash as I take in the world around me, the events of the season, the sparkle and shine. Why haven’t I seen that light display? I drive by this block twice a day and I’ve missed this, every single time. Why am I not noticing, where have my deeply observant eyes gone? I don’t buy in to the excess and stress of the season; I don’t shop for perfect gifts, nor create award-winning platters of amazing food worthy of a magazine spread or decorate as if House Beautiful is coming over. I celebrate the reason we celebrate, with the birth of a baby to a barely teenage mom in a lowly barn of filth, a baby that changed the world. And maybe so much of my resentment isn’t of life, but of how far off we’ve gone from this season, how badly we treat each other, how desperate lives have become, how sad the world seems to be. And there in itself is more reason to see those light displays shine, to throw off the blinders, to observe the good that remains. I just can’t be too busy to notice.

It’s ‘Just Write Tuesdays’ with Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary. This week = the 15th installment.

My routine every morning is pretty much the same; awaken to the sounds of my husband coming in the room and placing a steaming cup of coffee at my bedside, dropping a kiss to me, then putting up the shade before exiting. Sometimes a cat curls up next to me, paws kneading the quilt, purring hard and fast, and as my mind becomes clearer and I sip at my cup, I reach for my glasses and suddenly the world springs to life.

Since I was six, my day can’t start without placing glasses on my face. The wedge dug deep into bone on the bridge of my nose attests to a lifetime of pressure, as the prescription gets worse and the glasses become thicker. I can’t see more than half a foot in front of me without them, but without clear sight, I’ve gained other senses in compensation. Like the ability to smell far too many things that others can’t detect, or such delicate hearing that any noise in the night, even a cat sighing in contentment at my feet can waken me. Taste is sharper, touch is sensitive but knock off my glasses and I’m helpless.

Most of the time, I never think about it. Glasses are all right, even chic and fashionable. The lenses are designed to be less thick, more invisible and the styles are beautiful. And when I remove them, and gaze around me, a world opens up that only the sightless can know; shapes are undefined, colors bleed in to one another and the world hovers, dream-like and ethereal.Those with perfect vision can’t know the beauty that bursts forth in my mind when I take off my glasses.

I’ve tried though; tried to describe to someone what I see when I don’t see. But I get a puzzled look, and a smile that says they can’t possibly know. But I want them to know, that even half blind I might see better than those with 20/20. If your eyes were closed and I dropped a handful of cotton balls to your palm, would you ‘feel’ the color white?  If a searing hot pan touches your skin, do you think the color red? Do ice cubes make you understand what blue really is? This sight that’s blurred at the edges, hanging in suspension,  it’s like a secret only those of us with gouges on the bridge of our nose can understand.

The lights are my favorite thing, sans glasses. And when my face is bare, they become like colored fuzzy blobs floating around, with no anchor or connection. If I squint a bit, they dance and shimmy. Christmas lights are the best; an explosion of colors and magical shapes that evade even the wildest of descriptions. And I could never make sense of it to anyone.

But then I found this……

This….. it almost brings me to tears. Because for all these years, in trying to explain what I see, the magic in staring at tiny spectral lights that are blurred, unfocused and seemingly floating in thin air, this photo captures it all. Perfectly. I could spend hours gazing at blobby hazy lights and I never get tired of it. Like my teeth, or my ears or my hair, it’s part of who I am. This lack of good eyesight, the lifetime of fuzzy images…. it’s not a disability. Not to me. I can remove my glasses and the rest of the world slips away, and sometimes this is not a bad thing. This is my world, my life.

Because when the world is out of focus to some, it’s breathtaking in it’s clarity to someone else. I don’t need to see clearly what I know is really there; it’s perfect, just exactly as I see it. And this photo? This is enthralling, pure magic. Kind of like Christmas itself.

And now, thanks to Grace, from the website ‘Habit…. a collection of days‘, I can share this clarity with others.

 It’s Just Write Tuesdays. Stop over at The Extraordinary Ordinary for our 14th week.

I’m most frantic with trying to handle all the red-hot details of so very much these days. And I’m no different than anyone else who makes an extensive list that helps organize and pull it all together. The process of extracting it from my brain into line by line visuals takes it from a jumbled mess in my head to categorized chaos on paper, and sometimes it helps pull it all together. Sometimes.

And then, inevitably, I just make more in my head and it starts all over again. Or the list is paralyzing in it’s length, or breadth and it causes me to stare, incomprehensibly at what I think I should do.

Then I lay there this morning, much as I do every day, thinking about the hours ahead and the things I want to do, and a thought struck me so profound and immense that I sat up, quickly, and reached for my phone. Because in this season of ‘To Do’ and ‘To Decorate’ and ‘To Bake’ and ‘To Cook’ and all the other ‘To Do’s we force ourselves to create, I started to think of the ‘To Don’t’ items, the ones that I wish to shut the door on, both this season, and all to come.

They might be something like this:

~~Don’t fall in to the hype of a commercialized Christmas.
~~Don’t get caught up in piteous little daily things and ignore your coffee when it’s hot.
~~Remember, every single day, why we celebrate Christmas. The real reason.
~~Don’t buy anything that you don’t think you will use for 12 months a year.
~~Don’t bake anything you don’t like.
~~Don’t say ‘Yes’ unless you absolutely can.
~~Don’t forget about you, your son and your husband.
~~Don’t wait to decorate if it’s what you want right now.
~~Don’t think you have to be there when the perfect tree is found. They can do it too.
~~Don’t pass by that beautiful light display, glancing at it out of the corner of your eye. Stop the car. And really LOOK.
~~Don’t think you can’t go for a walk when it’s cold; bundle up and suck it up.
~~Don’t forget your camera, regardless.
~~Don’t ever forget where you came from, ever, when you start thinking you don’t have enough.
~~Don’t forget that when you gather, it’s about the company and community and not about the food,
the treats or anything else.

And oh my word, could I fill these pages with my ‘To Don’t's. Because, really,  this list is never-ending. And it doesn’t just apply to Christmas time, with all it’s frantic rushing and shoving through my days, exhaustively pressing pencil to paper in an attempt to slow it all down and control it. I have the same 24 hours as anyone on the planet. And no memories are made when I’m racing around in a panic, trying to fit it all in. And in among the massive endless ‘To Do” tasks that we think we have to accomplish, something will inevitably get lost, those moments forgotten in a mad rush or ‘this’ thing, or ‘that’ thing. And what are you willing to forget, to let go and push aside because some list of stupid tasks is more important?

All we’ve ever done, since list-making was created was make our ‘To Do’ lists, scratching out what we think is some semblance of order. For a dramatic change in perspective, I encourage you to write your own ‘To Don’t’ list.

What would be on it for Christmas this year?