tastes like December

I don't know who created the holiday treat known as Peppermint Bark but I think there should be a holiday in their honor. It would have to fall in December, of course, preferably on a grey day like this one that carries a hint of snow. The fun thing is that you can try different variations. In addition to the classic, I'm going for dark chocolate with chopped pistachios and dried cherries this year. It will look so festive in a glass jar on the kitchen counter. And gone in a twinkling.

Peppermint Bark

6 crushed candy canes

1 (12 oz) package of chocolate chips

1 (10 oz) package of white baking chips

Line an 11 x 7 inch baking pan with foil. Do not grease. Melt chocolate chips in a 1-quart bowl in a microwave oven on high about 1 1/2 minutes, until melted and smooth when stirred. Spread evenly on foil-lined pan. Refrigerate for 5 minutes. Melt white chips in another bowl on medium power about 3 1/2 minutes or longer, until melted and smooth when stirred. Watch carefully to avoid burning. Drop blobs of melted white chocolate over the semi-sweet chocolate in pan and carefully spread. Sprinkle top with crushed candy, pressing in gently with fingertips. Refrigerate until firm. Remove from pan and cut into irregular shapes.

take a deep breath

{Breathe in: evergreen, balsam, pine and fir. Breathe out: joy!}

merry memories

A miraculous fireplace and a mother who knew how to stir up holiday magic. A dream job making candy canes. Decorating his first apartment with 80 miniature trees and paper roses. Every chapter in Tomie dePaola's priceless memoir of Christmases past is like a window on an Advent calendar framing a particular time, place or detail. I felt his utter joy at finding all kinds of art supplies under the tree one year and the mysterious, holiness of the Christmas eve he spent in a monastery. But the greatest thing about the book is that it will inspire you to recollect the sights and sounds and recipes and relatives that have made your own holidays memorable. Better yet, to write those memories down. Best of all? To share them with the people you love.

hello holidays

There's not much of a transition between Thanksgiving these days and what's become the commotion of Christmas. Thanks have hardly been given, if given at all, before our culture says it's time to haul out the holly. The end-of-year calendar weeks have blurred together into what now is simply theholidays. It's up to us, my friends, to reclaim the weeks, days, moments of the season to spend in ways that are most meaningful to us. For you, that might mean making figure eights at the rink or a row of votive candles flickering above the kitchen sink. Maybe it's walking the labyrinth in the church courtyard during lunch hour or baking shortbread angels for the teachers. Pure contentment for me is watching a bowl of paperwhite narcissus grow and bloom in a winter windowsill. All you need is a handful of bulbs from the nursery, just about any old container, a bit of sunshine. And faith.

{Thanksgiving: for all of the blessings of this life . . . the 83rd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade . . . November sunshine and 60 degrees . . . Mom's turkey china and roasted carrots and mashed potatoes . . . Aunt 'Chele's cornbread stuffing and the best gravy ever . . . Walter expertly carving the turkey . . . Monteen's elegant dessert buffet . . . Uncle John in his eggplant-colored cashmere sweater, playing with the dog . . . cousins laughing . . . gathering around an outdoor fire pit with blankets and coffee . . . a late afternoon bike ride . . . sparkling pomegranate juice and nibbling on leftovers . . . James Bond marathon on tv . . . memories of a perfect day to keep in the heart forever.}

thanks & giving

Wishing you a heart-filled holiday, finding joy in home and family and friends. Wishing you good food, safe travels, the feeling of being awash in gratitude. Wishing you a cornucopia of blessings, with plenty left over to share.

{Thanksgiving: for The Shakespeare Stealer trilogy by Gary Blackwood, meeting the author and having the books signed . . . cheesecake made especially for a holiday homecoming . . . the annual 'Candemonium' canned food drive at A.G. Middle School and turkey drop-off on Wednesday morning}

{Thanksgiving: for best friends of all ages and their precious daughters, too . . . an autumn bouquet made from natural finds foraged on an afternoon walk . . . tights making a fashion comeback just in time to make it a cozy winter . . . starting a Sunday night pizza tradition}

kneeling at the world's altar

From the destruction and debris of Hurricane Katrina, artist Lori K. Gordon created mixed-media masterpieces like this miniature altar and showed the world how to salvage hope from the rubble. One of my most beloved possessions is a small ceramic altar my Italian grandmother kept in her home, the blessed Madonna with two kneeling angels and a votive candle. It sits on the dresser with necklaces around Mary's neck and earrings scattered at her feet, an icon of remembrance and reverence.

Priest and professor Barbara Brown Taylor has written a wonderful book called An Altar in the World, in which she talks about the places in her personal geography where she has met God outside of a traditional church setting: during an ice storm, at the clothesline, in the faces of other people. And she encourages us to think about our own altars. Yours might be in the garden, in a neighboring cubicle at work, at the stove, between the pages of a book like this one. Turns out, everywhere we are, God is. And the whole world is an altar.

{Thanksgiving: for good hot coffee and pumpkin waffles on a cold Saturday morning . . . All-Star football games, especially for the 12-year-olds in CYFL . . . a fresh coat of paint on the front door to welcome visitors}