christmas

Every year on Christmas Eve I look for a way to express love.  For years I felt, as the non-religious sort, the true import of this holiday was a bit lost on me, but continued celebrating in my own way.

domesticat.net now chronicles fully a quarter of my existence on this earth, and combining that with a search function often serves to bring the arc of my life into clearer, simpler focus.

Other people focus solely on Christmas, but the entries of the past eight years tell me that this period of the year, this time of shortened days and year-end celebrations, matters as much to me as that one single day matters to most of you reading this entry.  I am not celebrating a religious event, but I am using the excuse of darkened, chilly days to re-evaluate my place in this life and the people I share it with.

I light words against the darkness, and leave them for you to find.  Here are two images from Christmas Eves come and gone:

As close as you'll get to a Christmas card from us this year:

['Blessing enough' on flickr. ]
[Original photo shot in St. Patrick's, included in my 10/2007 New York City set.]

I board a plane for the Beer and Cheese Tour of Seattle at six a.m. next Thursday.

(Have you guys noticed over the past few years that every trip, project, etc. always seems to get a title after it's been in my life a while? By naming it, I bring it into existence. Or something.)