Expensive Wordplayers,

I really like this second in time, as the heat and blessing of Christmas juxtaposes the deepest darkness of the yr. For me, it seems like sitting on a snow-covered hill as night time falls.

The place I come from, winter nights are a howl of wind and fury, generally punctuated by the softness of a snow that seems like it would go on and on into infinity.

Though we could not all the time consider it, this turning of the season is a time of loss of life. It’s a second when all issues die, when there’s nothing round us however darkness. There’s a catch in my coronary heart as I really feel into its efficiency. If I’m trustworthy, there’s maybe at first a flinch of primordial terror, however as I wait within the chilly—as I shut my eyes and lift my face and breathe–there’s the wash of an incredible and peaceable familiarity. In that second, there’s give up.

After which, I open my eyes. The darkness of winter fills with lights. The wonder, the flicker, the deep heat and love of Christmas. It’s, and has all the time been, my favourite vacation.

I really like the traditions. I really like that each one my household returns to me. I really like the presents and the meals, the candlelit dinners and the irreplaceable pleasure of kids reveling in all of it.

I really like that it’s a second of deep reflection. A second when all the pieces I’m most grateful for in my life circles round me. It’s a time when the deep magic that’s story feels most actual to me.

For me, this Christmas closes out an epic yr of journey and enjoyable and deeply satisfying work—and likewise a terrifying shut name in a automobile accident that would have been a lot worse. It makes me really feel the poignant contrasts of this season that rather more deeply, and to sit up for all my huge plans for the New Yr with that rather more gratitude.

Whoever you’re and wherever you’re, I really feel assured that whenever you look behind you, you too are seeing a yr filled with adventures, maybe some shut calls, stress and rigidity, but in addition magnificence and beauty. Though the magic of story lives inside each single human being, I do reasonably assume that these of us who search the calling of telling these tales really feel maybe a bit extra deeply and brightly the facility and magic of each second.

We’re right here, on this second of time—at what can generally really feel just like the turning of an epoch—for a motive. Your path has crossed with mine for a motive.

And so forth this snowy night time underneath the celebrities with the lights of pleasant fires flickering on the horizon, I nod my recognition and respect to you as we go. Thanks for being with me, fellow traveler. I sit up for assembly you once more, down the highway, within the New Yr.

Merry Christmas.