A candle in a brown paper bag

Surrounded with optimism.  This Christmas has been a flash, it sprinkled itself throughout days of winter.  There has not been the strong anticipation for Christmas day like I once had when I was a boy.   This year I didn't realize it was the most wonderful time of the year, until now.  This year, the Christmas season was opened on a beach, saying a long over due good bye to some lingering memories of marriage sentiment, tucked alongside a senior trip encounter with a special woman who became my wife for a little bit.  In Cancun for lovely wedding I got to stitch tightly the history between my ex-wife and I, closing the circle symbolically.  The Christmas season creeped up on me during a play called a farolito Christmas.  It was here where I was warmed up to the importance of tradition.  I spent this Christmas not as a preparation for a day but a indulgence of a season.  I am optimistic again.

I am faithful with hope.  I understand Christmas not so much for a savior's birth but for the importance of the new beginning, being born in humility, born in a manger.  Time is the Christmas currency.  This Christmas time was on my side.  This Christmas I used my time for the people and events that presented themselves to me, versus Christmas past where most my time was spent doing was what I felt I should be doing.  This Christmas has been a lesson in sincerity.  

I have a small burning candle in my heart that trusts the dim little yellow glow will be enough to guide my thoughts, harness my fears, and sustain my dreams.  This year was trying, and it feels like a lonely, cold, dark night perfectly challenging the weak but untiring flame still lit in my soul. 

 A flame needs oxygen and my flame has found pockets of oxygen in this Christmas season.  The pockets of oxygen are like optimism ignoring the darkness, riding the frigid wind, and circling my flame.  The family and friendships encountered have been like the luminaria bag, taming the threats that can putout my flame.  My flame of faith is flickering.  Each day this Christmas was inspirational, not because it was in anticipation but because I was surprised by what revealed itself in the practice of patience. Patience allowed for oxygen to feed my flame.

"Let my heart become a manger that Christ may find his way and be born again"

Feliz Navidad