A season of forgiveness...

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Love thy neighbor. This is what we're called to do. Every day of our lives. But most especially this week, Holy Week.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. This is what we pray. But how do you forgive? How do you let go of hurt and anger and hate?

Petty things cause such wide rifts. A neighbor invites a dozen kids to a birthday party, but excludes your son. How could she be so insensitive?

"Why doesn't anybody like me, Mommy?" the child asks. And anger hardens and becomes cement around the heart.

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1,001 small acts of kindness necessary for love to survive

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When it arrived in the mail, I dismissed it as another of those self-help books that promises more than it delivers. Nice cover, eye-grabbing title - "1001 Ways To Be Romantic" - but inevitably just a rehash of those tacky, smarmy suggestions that appear in Cosmo once a year.

My 21-year-old daughter set me straight.

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Starting a new year demands a whole new beginning - I thought

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I used to be compulsive about New Year's Day. About all beginnings: beginnings of days, weeks, months. I figured if I could somehow make everything perfect on this one day, on this first day, then the rest of the days would obediently follow.

If I didn't get the light on the way to Dunkin' Donuts on a Sunday morning, and I did get a parking space, and the line was short and not long, and they had powdered lemon donuts honey-dipped sticks, then the week would be wonderful. If not, well…

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Unexpected part of Yuletide

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I called it my Protestant tree because we bought it at the Episcopal church instead of at the Knights of Columbus and because a few hours after I'd decorated it, with strung popcorn and cranberries and hand rolled-gingerbread men and frosted cookie stars and angels, the tree fell, crashing to the floor.

I wailed and moaned because never before had I gone to such effort for a tree. Never before had I strung cranberries or popcorn, or even sugar cookies. The effort was entirely new.

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Unexpected part of Yuletide

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I called it my Protestant tree because we bought it at the Episcopal church instead of at the Knights of Columbus and because a few hours after I'd decorated it, with strung popcorn and cranberries and hand rolled-gingerbread men and frosted cookie stars and angels, the tree fell, crashing to the floor.

I wailed and moaned because never before had I gone to such effort for a tree. Never before had I strung cranberries or popcorn, or even sugar cookies. The effort was entirely new…

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Shopping's traditional too

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t's all so trivial. I recognize this. It doesn't matter that Christmas is a week away and I have so little done. No gifts for my son, my daughters, my husband. Not a present under the tree. No cookies baked. Only a handful of cards written.

Who cares. Is everyone healthy? Yes. Is everyone going to be home for Christmas? Yes. Do we have a roof over our heads, heat, lights, running water, a telephone and cars that start in the morning? Yes, yes, yes, yes!

Then why am I feeling great waves of get-me-a-paper-bag-I-can't-brea

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No more noodle necklaces

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My daughter, the 21-year-old, calls them "noodle necklace gifts," the Christmas presents you open every year that you have to pretend to like.

"You know how in school little kids make necklaces out of noodles and bring them home and wrap them up and give to their mothers on Christmas day and mothers act as if they're the best present ever?"

I know. We all know. A noodle necklace from a child is a great gift, a combination of ziti, glue and love. But a noodle necklace from a boyfriend or a husband, a grown man who's supposed to be perceptive and warm and considerate - this is a whole other story.

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Even a miserable cold couldn't dim the joy of Thanksgiving

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It begins with a tickle in the back of the throat. Nothing to worry about. Just a tickle. Probably a dog or cat hair lodged in the esophagus. There are dog and cats hairs all over this house. I drink orange juice and hot tea to dislodge it. I say it is nothing, that it will go away.

"No it won't. You're getting a cold," the chorus around me sings. "There's a terrible cold going around and you're getting it."

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Guys, offer a holiday hand

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t arrived in the mail, compliments of a good friend. "Christmas Ease -287 Top Tips for a Delightful Stress-Free Holiday" by Michelle West, certainly piqued my interest, but it was, I thought smugly, just a bit premature. It was only October when I found it in my mailbox. The days were still balmy. Leaves clung to the trees. Roses bloomed on the vine. Christmas was eons away.

I stacked the book on top of another my friend sent, on how to get rid of cellulite. I realize now that if I'd opened both when they arrived I would not be in the shape I'm in today.

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Her life, like all lives, matters

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We were months away from Christmas when she said it. There was no self-pity in her tone. She was matter-of-fact. "I've never done much of anything with my life. I'm just another face in the crowd. The world would have gotten along just fine without me." She then went on to explain how ordinary she was. She was just a wife, just a mother. She worked in an office with a dozen other people who did the same job she did. There was nothing special about her. She didn't have a great mind or a great talent. Her existence was, she said, not necessary.

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Time to reflect is the best gift of all

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They keep asking me what I want for Christmas. "Do you want a book, Mom? Do you want a gift certificate to the movies? Gloves? A sweater? Give us a hint." I keep telling them that what I want they can't buy. I want time. An extra day between Monday and Tuesday. Two extra days. Ten extra nights. A dozen hours added to today. Huge chunks of time between now and Christmas Day to slow down, enjoy, luxuriate, bask in the smells and sounds and feeling of this season. I want time to sit in front of the Christmas tree and re-read "The Gift of the Magi," and "A Christmas Carol" and "A Christmas Memory."

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Holiday shopping: Love made it fun

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The woman was hassled. You could see it in her eyes, in the way they darted about the place, and in her footsteps, quick and impatient, eager to keep walking past. But the storefront intrigued the little girl at her side. "What does the sign say, Mommy?" the child asked. "It says, `All items $1,"' the woman explained. "You mean everything in that store costs a dollar?" the child said.

"That's right," the mother replied.

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An excess of riches

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The OxFam banquet was a month ago, an event associated with Thanksgiving, not Christmas. And yet the image created there lingers, because what was glimpsed isn't seasonal. It's constant, the way things are every day. That night hundreds of people came to the great hall at the Park Plaza Castle to either dine at a table dressed up for a celebration, to have a good meal, sip wine and be feted; or to sit on the floor and eat rice. It was the luck of the draw that divided the group. Everyone paid $25. But everyone wasn't treated equally.

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Cooking up a new tradition for the Thanksgiving feast

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It used to be cute that I couldn't cook. When I was young and newly married, everyone forgave me my failures. People gushed that my fried bologna and beans were "different," my fried hamburger and french fries an "important staple," my fried eggs and bacon an "interesting choice for dinner." I didn't realize that these personal favorites were not actually adored by crowds, not even when practically everyone I knew, including my husband, would insist that we send out for pizza.

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Smashing pumpkins and trust

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I look out my office window and see the giant spider's web, which had filled half the front yard, hanging in pieces. He/she/they didn't totally destroy it this time around. Two weeks ago, on a Sunday morning I opened my front door and the web was gone, just yarn on the ground. My husband wove it again. He took more white yarn and cut two more stakes and strung the wool as a spider would do, carefully, methodically.

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