i woke up on tuesday to find myself living in the land of ice and snow. it was truly spectacular.

on thursday, the world was still frozen.

i took atlas and my camera for a walk that evening and nearly froze my fingers off.

on friday, the world was still frozen.

i took atlas and my camera for a hike around calumet lake that afternoon. the alternate thawing and freezing meant that the trail was pretty solid, no snowshoes required.

i will confess that i expected to see jon snow and some of his brothers on the night’s watch, or else the snow queen, around every single corner.

from now on, when i read game of thrones, this is how i will picture the wall, the lands north of the wall, and winterfell in winter.

{a story from the archives. because it makes me happy. because it is the season.}

dear savannah,

brrrrrrrrr, it is cold at the north pole right now. it might be just as cold as north dakota.

the elves in the stable are working round-the-clock to keep the water in the reindeer’s water dishes thawed. it seems to freeze solid every hour. when they miss a bowl, the reindeer bump their noses on the ice when they go to take a drink. almost all of the reindeer have bruises on their noses now. even rudolph.

did you write a letter to me this year? mrs. claus says i’m getting old because sometimes i forget things. i am getting old, but i never forget the important things, like where you live or how old you are. i do, however, often forget where my glasses are. (usually, they are in my beard. it is such a big fluffy beard that i often put my glasses in there for safekeeping and then forget about them.)

are you enjoying the holiday season? there is so much wonder and magic in the air right now. you can watch the snowflakes sparkle in the lamplight. you can giggle at the icicles on atlas’s chin. you can see the colorful shadows on the wall behind the christmas tree. you can watch the chickadees as they hop from branch to branch. you can find the green of the evergreens hidden beneath their winter coat of snow.

mrs. claus and i love this time of year. we drink hot cocoa and swap stories about the people we love. sometimes we feel sad because we miss the elves that have retired and gone back to their villages, so we cry for a while and then give each other a big hug.

(silly me. i am getting old. i don’t need to tell you about wonder and magic. you can find it anywhere. i heard how you found the mardi gras beads and made a rainbow.)

it’s fun to think of you getting older, savannah. i hope you know how special you are and how very much you are loved, exactly the way you are.

it’s time for me to say goodbye now. i need to bring some soup to the chief elf. he has a cold and his nose won’t stop running. it is dripping all over the presents.

don’t forget your friend santa claus, and please leave me a cookie! i love pumpkin raisin, just like your auntie nibby.

merry christmas.

love, santa claus

do you know someone who would love their very own letter from santa claus?

here’s a way for you to delight them!

i can feel all the anger + frustration + anguish in the united states right now and my heart is breaking.

i don’t know what to say, for many reasons, but it feels important to say something.

here is what i know.

the civil rights movement occurred from 1954-1968.

1968 was less than 50 years ago.

no matter how much i might want to believe otherwise, i have heard enough + seen enough + read enough to know that racism is not dead, privilege does exist, and sometimes i am part of the problem.

i want to live in a world in which everyone feels seen + heard + valued.

i want to live in a world in which everyone truly feels free.

perhaps it sounds naive, but i believe that such a world is possible.

maybe not now. maybe not for generations. maybe systems will have to be dismantled.

still, i choose to believe it is possible.

as i sit with hard questions, i commit (again) to this.

i will check my privilege.

i will listen; i will learn; i will seek to understand.

i will notice the way i divide the world into us and them, and meet each person as an individual.

i will not fear my blind spots, my darkness, the many times i will fail at this. i will acknowledge them & do the work necessary & send love to myself through all of it.

above all, i commit to love.

i was wondering how this post connected to my mission – to remind you of beauty + wonder.

perhaps it doesn’t.

but i do know there is beauty in everything: beauty in rising up, beauty in coming together, beauty in what seems like darkness.

this part is for me, a reminder of my touchstones.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

~ Solzhenitsyn

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people.

~ C.S. Lewis

a million years ago, i sent my coworkers a terrible + humorous parody of the 12 days of christmas featuring an adorable + saucy pup named atlas. (and by saucy, i mean energetic + inventive.)

a memory of the rhyme popped into my head yesterday in a moment of glee, so i scoured every single one of my digital archives in an attempt to find it. alas, it is gone.

gone, but not completely forgotten.

“on the first day of christmas, my puppy gave to me ..”

i don’t remember any of the items, but i think they mostly consisted of non-edible things atlas had eaten since moving in with me. like one half of a pair of camel-colored knee-high leather boots. or a couch. or a screen door. or a mattress.

how i love/d that adorable + saucy pup!

“The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson