New Blog – Happy Winter Solstice from Our Family to Yours
Listening to Christmas carols and the ocean, as I sit outside and write to the glow of holiday lights. The windows are open behind me so the carols on the blue tooth speaker are background noise to the pounding waves. The wind has picked up from the gentle slap of earlier. The sea had sounded almost lazy as we walked along the shore, but now the sound alone makes me know there’d be no swimming off the beach and even a small boat would be a rocky ride tonight. The stars that had been so brilliant earlier are hidden behind a thick cloud cover. It’s a black night beside the sea and even with the glow of the Christmas lights I’m strangely melancholy. I guess it’s the time of year for it, remembering the people that aren’t here for the holiday and never will be again this side of the grave. Missing my mother is a constant, but I wonder what my grandmother would think about our tower by the sea, to my knowledge she never saw the ocean and never wanted to.
I can smell the steaks cooking under Spike’s watchful eye. Genevieve is helping Jon prepare fresh green beans for pan sauté with garlic and a few other spices. It’s nearly eighty degrees outside while Bing Crosby sings about a white Christmas that will never happen here. The ocean pounds, the carols sing, the lights glow, the dogs wonder why I won’t throw the ball while I type, and it’s almost time for dinner with my polyamorous foursome. Life is good, but there will always be those people who aren’t with me at the holidays that make it a strange time of happiness and sorrow.
Trinity, our daughter, will be joining us from college later. This is her first year away and the first time she has to come back for the holidays. It is both wonderful and a little sad, as well. She is off on her own adventure and we’re thrilled, but it’s another big change and all change can translate to loss in our heads and in our hearts if we’re not careful to remember the difference. It’s all good, but it is different.
Genevieve introduced me to the song, ” All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan,” by Kenny Chesney from 2003. It was pretty appropriate for this year, though we all slather ourselves up with sunscreen in an effort to avoid sunburn. The idea of a tropical holiday isn’t new. Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters were singing about it with, “Mele Kalikimaka” the Hawaiian Christmas song in 1950. Ella Fitzgerald crooned, “Christmas Island,” in 1960. When I was a little girl I loved having a white Christmas with lots of snow, but I’m pretty good sitting here with a warm ocean just outside the door and palm trees swaying in the tropical breeze. White sand will do just fine as a stand in for all that snow.
The picture with this blog is from my office for the day where three of the dogs helped inspire me, just like they do at home.
I hope that all of you reading this will have a wonderful holiday celebration whether it is Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or Winter Solstice, and that family, whether of choice or of blood, gather round you. May you have friends, and if a solitary holiday is what you want I hope you enjoy your own company, because in the end no matter how many people we love, or love us, it is ourselves that we come to in the end and always.
24 thoughts on “New Blog – Happy Winter Solstice from Our Family to Yours”
Comments are closed.
I hope you and your are having a blessed Yule as well.
Yours. Not your.
Thank you, Laurell.
Merry Christmas to you and yours! 🙂
God bless and keep you all healthy and safe.
Much love,
Mgon
Happy holidays from New Zealand where we always dream of a white Christmas as we swim from, in my case, black sand beaches or swimming pools and get overheated in the sun as we turn into crayfish (lobsters) without the SPF 50 sunscreen.
You are by far my favorite author. Your books have taken me away from unwanted situations, and placed me in great surroundings with Anita and her great adventures. I am getting a tattoo of Anita Blake. I just don’t know which one yet. I am a follower on Facebook and always comment on your posts. I tried desperately to win an autographed copy of one of your books but didn’t get lucky. I hope you continue to put out more Anita Blake books. Have a great holiday.
Susan Stinogel
Blessed Yule to you and yours Laurell
Well, I am jealous–I hate winter. I hope you have a very Happy holiday time with your family including the little furry ones! 😀 Be safe and have fun!
Happy Holidays. Wishing you love, joy and comfort. Somehow you manage to make a lot of us readers feel like you are a part of our families. Thank you and all the best to you always.
From a former Maplewood girl, I gotta say Genevive just became my favorite person ever!! All I Want For Christmas Is A Real Good Tan has been my favorite Christmas song for a while now. Ironically before that it was a tie between Silver Bells and White Christmas, though it’s been quite a few years since I really wanted a white Christmas!! I hope y’all have a great tropical holiday, even though I’m terribly jealous as we deal with teens to forties back here in Missouri!!
Looks absolutely wonderful! I’m jealous as I sit here at my computer desk with a small heater going at my feet. Just wanted to take a moment to Wish you and yours the Brightest of Yuletide Blessings! May whatever Divinity you honor Bless you Richly in the upcoming year!
Yuletide Blessings! We are also in the beautiful tropics, and we plan to celebrate Yule at sundown.
May I say the same to you and your’s. And no truer word’s have been put to paper.
Sounds wonderful! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.
I hope you have a blessed winter solstice. I live in Georgia and we don’t have a white Christmas either so a Ocean breeze and waves crashing into shore would be nice to hear. Have a safe holiday and enjoy yourself and don’t work to hard…There is always the new year…
Everything you write touches me (everything), and this particular blog feels so familiar. During the holidays I feel the same and think of the poem Gold by Robert Frost. It’s not a holiday poem, but it is to me. Thank you for this deeply personal blog entry. It is comforting knowing I am not the only one in this club.
Wishing you all a Blessed Yule. I hope that the energy of those passed may come and comfort you in moments of melancholy and that your loved ones present fill you with joy at all the others!
I hope you had a wonderful solstice and I hope you enjoy the rest of the holiday season with your friends and loved ones.
Blessed be from my family to yours
You could not ask for a more peaceful view! Blessings of all seasons and faiths to you and yours!
Here’s to trusting that our item of faith, whatever it may be, glows when we need it to!!!
Wishing you and your family and friends a blessed holiday season from Syracuse, New York. Normally we are buried under feet of snow but today it is 50ish out and the thought of snow far from our minds. Enjoy your tropical breezes!
Happy Solstice and Blessed Yule to you and your family.
“….even with the glow of the Christmas lights I’m strangely melancholy.” I’ve never felt that during this time of year, not really, until this year. I’m not sure if you read comments left, but I wanted to thank you for offering your fantasy-land as a place for those of us who feel a kinship to your Anita, to hide in. THAT is what has gotten me through this year, and this season, and I thank you for that. I used to be Very Anita, as my once-Anita-ignorant-turned-fan-for-me-husband says. My 6.5years now disability has stripped my ability to Keep my Word, Stand by All Commitments, as Anita does. Reading her keep hers though, somehow makes me feel just a little better. I know you get all kinds of oddball notes, probably- I’d guess, a very interesting mix… if You, Madam Authoress, actually READ your comments, I hope it gives you a teeny pleasure to know that your word-crafting, your storytelling, brings this one little reader/reviewer/editor a great deal of happiness when Life just plain sucks. *ahem* No pun actually intended. 😉
With much respect,
Wishing you well, many forth-coming words, and more happiness than melancholy for a while- just for balance, ya see,
Carolynn Evans
~literary reviewer/book.tv.movie.game-gobbler-upper/editor~
I hope you and your family have a wonderful and prosperous 2015. I love the picture! Kudos for the new Merry book and I am eager to see if she takes over as the queen of the sluagh in the next one.
Have a wonderful year!!!
Veta
Sanger, Texas
Enjoy your writing. I’m hoping you and Merry can come to some agreement for another book. Babies are interesting. What promise they show.
I really enjoyed all of these books I even read the series twice well it was 6years ago. Are you going to make a TV series of your books because they would make fantastic viewing.