Pizza, Catalogs

I absolutely love Christmas. I begin planning to bake the traditional holiday cookies the day after Halloween, which is also my birthday,

I willingly confess I even love the Christmas catalogs that seemingly multiply daily in my tiny mail box.’

Most arrive from sources I never knew or ever requested. Yet all are read from cover to cover before being discarded. Despite rarely (if ever) making a purchase (except in the tried and true Met Museum Holiday issue) all the others allow me to dream of sugar plums and Santa Claus and sometimes even sweet memories of mistletoe.

Then I remember the greatest gifts I received during my amazing lifetime, and recall none came from a catalog . Becase a gift of time is incredible and sometimes overlooked when presented without colorful tissue paper and satin ribbon,

Whenever such largesse enters my life unexpectedly it always brings comfort and nurtures my soul. Immediately, I know I have been rewarded with something precious. A gift that will never appear in a catalog, and cannot be redeemed, sold or exchanged,

The gift of time is precious, and rarely forgotten the way a garment can be discarded. Time lingers in memory faded perhaps but always lurking quietly in a happy moment of yesterday.

And while I will continue to enjoy the mounds of catalogs that have already begun to arrive, soon they will be forgotten,

But I will always remember the times my Sunday visitors arrive with love disguised in boxes of pizza.

And all the many unwrapped gifts of time that I have received from so many who embraced me along my journey,