You’d think, since my family lived in Paraguay, South America, that our Christmas traditions would be Hispanic, including pan dulce (a vanilla bread sort of resembling fruit cake), Papá Noel and cotton on our Christmas tree to simulate snow during the hot summer month of December. Not so. My…
I admit it. I love to volunteer at Thanksgiving and Christmas, doing whatever — cooking, serving meals, cleaning up. Although Ed and I give money to charities year-round, it’s mostly during the holidays when I feel called to show up in person to help. And that’s exactly…
If you Google “Holiday” and “Depression,” you’d think the vast majority of us fall into a deep funk during this time of merry celebration: Holiday Anxiety and Depression: Click for Survival Tips Holiday Depression: How to Beat the Holiday Blues this Christmas 11 Tips for Avoiding Holiday Depression Triggers It…
Our Token Holiday Decorations The winter holiday season used to be an exciting time of the year for me, filled with festive parties and happy social gatherings with my family and friends. I remember the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg. The delighted sounds of my children’s…
Three piles: One pile of stuff we think our kids would love to have. One pile of things we think we can sell. And the little pile of things we’ll take with us to our new small townhouse in Eugene. Ed and I are downsizing. It’s too much work to…
(He gave me permission to write this.) I married Ed almost a quarter of a century ago. I married him, knowing there were things about him that would always bother me. Like that he wasn’t into international travel (I love to travel). His only experiences outside…
I’m back in Paraguay, the land of my childhood. I first came here as a baby many years ago, when my parents founded a leprosy station that I called home. Alone, I make my way along a dirt road toward our house, a red and…
I’m driving along I-5, heading north toward Portland. My two adorable grandsons, 7 and 10, are fighting over something in the backseat of the car. “Please keep your hands to yourselves,” I tell them. The next thing I know water bottles are flying around my head. I see blood in…
In the early decades of my life, I believed older people must envy my youth. My smooth skin. My strong muscles. My abundant energy. My dreams. Call it the hubris of young ignorance, but I was sure the best part of life had to…
While many of you will sit around a table with family members on November 22nd, Ed and I will continue a tradition we began a few years ago. Here’s what we did last year: It was 92 degrees in Tucson that day. We sat at one of about a dozen…