Dear friends

Happy Christmas week! This is a week when you can reflect upon your many blessings both past and present.

From my past, I received a letter, a real letter, from a dear friend in the midwest.

Are you old enough to remember the anticipation of going to the mailbox to look for a letter and being so excited to receive one?

I’ve known this lovely lady for too many years to put in print. Our husbands worked together, and our families played together.

We were ‘friends’ in the true meaning of the word maneuvering through a lot of personal and professional ups and downs.

Connecting again after so long was a wonderful thing. It brings hope for a future visit.

From my present, I have a dear friend from the northern part of the state. She keeps me supplied and satisfied with her many varieties of jam, jelly, applesauce, pickles, fudge and her husband’s special Maple Syrup. Any one of these gifts is a true delight to enjoy.

But this year, she gave me a beautiful afghan that she had just completed. I was speechless.

It is so soft and warm but has a heft to it that I can’t describe the feeling when you snuggle under it.

As I enjoy its warmth on these cold days, I look down at the rich colors and am in awe of her skills and generosity in gifting it to me.

And on Sunday evening, we had a pot luck dinner with friends in Portsmouth. I worked with her at a local university and the guys play golf in a summer league.

They have a lovely historic New England home and part of our pot luck dinner was hot pot. We’d never had it before, but it was delicious – beef, sausage, potatoes, onions, carrots. It was kind of like a rich stew only better. Add that to pork, side dishes, cheesecake, some wonderful wine and great conversation, and we were four very happy people.

Thank you to these special friends and to my blogging friends for emphasizing the true meaning of Christmas which is not a bag from a store at the mall but rather an opportunity to connect with friends.