Happy Holidays from Hummingbird!
We are wishing you all the happiest of holidays!! This is our first Holiday Season at Hummingbird, and mostly, we are filled with gratitude for the way we have been received and supported by our readers! Thank you. This is a dream come true in many ways. Hummingbird asked our contributors to extend their holiday thoughts through this collective post. Here they are, with many thanks to you and our best wishes for Christmas and 2018.
From Tina Folks
I've been thinking a lot about this lately, as all the holiday festivities are in various states of "readiness" -- that we are all the Santas (and likely unsung heroes), especially the Moms and single parents out there who do it all!! And, I'm also feeling love and gratitude for my Mom, Betty. She left behind big shoes for us to fill and we miss her.
From Mary Ann DiLorenzo
May the holidays be as special to you as you are to all of us! We are so thankful for your support!
From Sarah Ehrenson
“Thanks to autocorrect, 1 out of 5 children will be getting a visit from Satan this Christmas.”
From Tony Meisel
May the holidays be a harbinger of peace, prosperity, and compassion. They won't be, but it may help to dream a bit!
From Lynda Bernard
Joyous, Merry, Peace, Goodwill,
O Welcome Season,
We celebrate now for so many reasons.
From Jay Miller
With all the turmoil going on in the world, it is a pleasure to sit back and enjoy the holidays at our soon to be discovered paradise - the North Fork. Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!
From Janet Verneuille
Thankful for the wisdom to appreciate that the most precious in life are the intangibles. Health, kin, friendship, freedom, nature, the arts, support and individual autonomy, kindness, reason, comfort and joy.
From Barry Novick
Quoting Ogden Nash, and my good friend Les Kellman, “Ring out the old, ring in the new, but don’t get caught in between.” Happy Holidays!
From Ann Pogue
Now, and in the New Year:
May we all share joy, peace and love.
May we all have challenges that help us learn and grow, but do not hold us back.
May we all listen carefully, judge rarely, and give compassion.
I’m thankful for thehummingbirdpost community, and look forward to reading it - and writing for it! - in 2018.
From Raina Rubin
Joy to the world and to each of you this holiday season. For a traditionally southern New Year’s Day celebration, cook up some Hoppin’ John and collard greens to be assured a lucky and prosperous new year!!
From Sandra Novick
2017 might have been one of the best years of my life! What I think made it so was of course my amazing (Yes, truly amazing Lynda B.!) family and friends, but also my being open to all the things I didn’t plan on—all the unexpected surprises that turned out to be so much more than I could have anticipated. Hummingbird is one of those. It was an idea that hung around, and once the wheels started turning, an energy and intelligence just flowed. Thank you to all for reading and supporting Hummingbird, and thank you so much to all of the Hummingbird contributors, who just said, "yes, I'm in" and produced beautiful, honest, meaningful content. So, my Christmas wish for all of us, is the joy of the unexpected, the pleasure in the everyday, and the love and support of our families. Merry Christmas to all, and look for the gift of surprise in 2018. May all the joys of the season by yours.
From Angela Rieck
The Gift
The Chinese call this age the “the gift;” we have raised our children and buried our parents and now it is time for us. But I don’t see this as a single gift, instead I see it as a series of gifts…that I do not always recognize until a long time after receiving them. Some gifts are very hard to recognize.
In the past I have appreciated gifts from others, even if it is not to my particular taste, because I recognized that the giver thought about me and thought about what I might like, through their prism. My husband was that person. Every year I received gifts of black clothing, black is one of the colors that I cannot wear, so I learned to add scarves to my repertoire to prevent people from trying to embalm me. It took 10 years for my brother in law to comment that black wasn’t my color before Jeff got the idea. But I saw those gifts through my husband’s prism. He thought I was beautiful, no matter how I or others perceived me…so I cherished those black clothes.
My goal in this phase of life is to recognize everything as a gift, even if it doesn’t seem like one at the time…my goal is to find the gift in what is presented to me. But thehummingbirdpost is an easy gift to recognize. I am inspired by seeing how others are using this gift and grateful for the praise and encouragement that I have received in trying to find my own gifts. So in this season of gratitude, I want to thank you all for reading, writing, drawing and quilting. But especially, I would like to thank Sandy Novick for her vision for starting this blog and allowing us all to grow through connection.
The Tina Folks sketch below is dedicated to her mother Betty, in loving and thankful memory.
Click the image to enlarge.
To All the Santas Out There.
