On Friday I made dinner for my entire family. My sister was in town with her family staying with my parents. I loved my menu and had a great time cooking. The Husband thinks this particular dinner was the most successful of my family dinner's ever because we actually stayed around the table and talked. It was my niece's birthday but she looked none too happy :( I think the teenage years are going to be very hard on her. She really feels unheard and disrespected most of the time. I keep praying that I will be able to foster a better relationship with my children so that they never feel this way. I felt this way as a teenager and hated it. I often wonder if it is possible... or do all teenagers need to go through the "hate my parents," rebellious stage?

On Sunday our neighbors invited us over to celebrate the 3rd day of Hanukkah with them. I have to say it was really great. The Son was so exciteda bout Hanukkah and has talked about it for a couple of days. He understands that we celebrate Yule and that our neighbors celebrate Hanukkah and now he wants to have them over for our Yule celebrations to show them how we celebrate. I'm going to try to plan something that we can do.

This year I'm going to be making our sacred cave again so I think we might have a family dinner and exchange our gifts with the exception of one or two... then we'll have our company (our neighbor and another family) and for celebrations I'm thinking of having a large red candle that we all encircle. Each person has a candle in front of them. We turn off all the lights and sit in darkness for a moment then we'll light the main candle. After that each person takes their personal candle and lights it from the main candle with a thankful thought for that year or the year to come. This will be an observance of the sun's birthday. After that, we'll place a light in our sacred cave along with my clay sculpture of the mother birthing the sun and light it up outside.

I think, after that, I want to have a birthday part for the sun! The Son really understood what Yule was when I explained it as the sun's birthday so I think I'm going to try making a birthday cake for the sun --- maybe with a sun picture on it or something...

Genj, I've been really thinking about your yoga comments...still processing :)