There goes Christmas and here comes the New Year

My blogging has fallen away of late, so I never wrote the post wishing you all a happy Christmas, and thanking you for your likes and comments and friendship throughout the year. But you were in my thoughts and I almost wrote the post!

We had our family Christmas on Saturday, and then my Mum, the Fella and I went down to Somers on Christmas Eve and stayed for a few days.

Somers is a little holiday town on the Western Port Bay, looking out towards Phillip Island. There is no pub, no shop, no 24 hour store, no supermarket, only a cafe and the beach. And it is not a town on the way to anywhere else. The road goes in, curls around the edge of the coast for a little way and then heads out. Even the beaches are hidden down little sandy tracks. It’s the perfect place for peace and quiet.

Our Christmas was very quiet but still full of love and joy, and food, of course. I made an eggplant moussaka.

My sister and brother-in-law came down Christmas night and there was more love and joy and food. And walks along the beach ( I am not a swimmer!). One time I found this strange object……

……which is a shark’s egg, probably a Port Jackson shark egg. Read here to find out more.

And then my little great-nephew Archie, who is one, came down with his mum. He delighted us, and seemed to fill the house with his activity and energy. The six adults watched and marvelled at everything he did, finding it all endlessly fascinating.

I hope that your holiday time was as full of love and joy as mine was, and that you found time to laugh and enjoy the company of loved ones.

Now we head towards new year. New Year’s Eve has never been an important night for me. I can remember some shocking ‘celebrations’. This year I will be at home and probably only still be up at midnight because I am absorbed in my book! However, I will be thinking back over 2018, and pondering 2109, making some plans.

No matter how we celebrate the new year, I know all of us will be wishing for a calm year, one where the earth and all who live on her have a chance to heal and find our balance again. I love this quote from Howard Zinn:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.
It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty,
but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.
If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.
If we remember those times and places — and there are so many —
where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way,
we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.
The future is an infinite succession of presents,
and to live now as we think human beings should live,
in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

 Howard Zinn

What more can we ask for than to choose hope?

What will give you hope in 2019?