'Tis the Season is heard often these days when we turn our minds and hearts purposely to giving and sharing. The music, the lights and the messages are everywhere. I know for many it is also a time when loss is felt more keenly, stresses financially and others to perform and do so much this time of year can be exhausting. We can not do it all or make the Holidays for others by over extending ourselves in any way.

This year will be my first Christmas without my Mom, I have spent every Christmas with my Mom my entire life and find myself forgetting, the pink sweater I saw the other day she would have loved. (the pink thing is indeed hereditary!) I miss her dearly but remember how much she enjoyed the Holidays last year in her new apartment with us. She loved to sit with the music playing and the fireplace glowing. My oldest daughter is off to ski for the Holidays with her wonderful birth family so my youngest and I will celebrate here a little differently. No tree this year for the first time but with two kittens probably a good thing! The place is still decorated and the girls are making their traditional non traditional Gingerbread House this week. (This year's theme a homage to Michael Jackson's Thriller, always a challenge to fit it into the decorating scheme!) We are not having turkey instead a yummy seafood casserole.

I have also someone special in my life now and part of my holidays will be elsewhere. So the season like life itself changes and the emotions are a mix as well. That is life and in life the sorrows allow us to also know and appreciate true JOY. Each morning I put on the twinkling lights around the house and the Holiday music, I sing and dance (great aerobics!) around the house with each window a wintery masterpiece of snow covered trees and sparkly land.

What anyone really wants is connection, compassion and caring, the gift of another person whether with a visit, a call, a card that expresses the importance of one for another. We never know how long we are meant to be here, may those we love know always how much they mean to us. Make this a season of love, love messages from the heart that is the JOY of the season! Follow the JOY always! Debra, CEO!