Baby Jesus is life of the party we're shopping, decorating for

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Baby Jesus is life of the party we're shopping, decorating for

In the church calendar, the days leading up to Christmas aren't about shopping and decorating and sending Christmas cards. They're about waiting for the holy birth. They're about taking time for prayer and reflection and acts of kindness.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son."

Yes, well, something like that, the Son of God and the holy birth are not really paramount on the minds of many because, let's face it, the holy birth isn't in the fliers or on the ads on TV. The holy birth is relegated to Sundays and Christmas carols. "Away in a Manger," and "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Isn't that right?

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Mentor was the inspiration for a lifetime of memories

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Mentor was the inspiration for a lifetime of memories

I met Bob Cormier in the fall of '81, nearly 20 years ago. Hard to believe. I drove to his house in Leominster to interview him, not knowing how to interview, winging it, freelancing for The Patriot Ledger, but what did I know? I wasn't a real writer. Bob Cormier was. I'd spent the summer reading his books, one right after the other, while my kids played, while my husband drove, while whatever was cooking on the stove burned. I loved his work. Could I come and talk to him? I wrote.

He answered on the thin, shiny, erasable bond paper that I will always associate with him. "I'd be happy to meet you and talk and be interviewed. I write at home. My telephone number is" and there it was.

He was that accessible.

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Let vision bloom at debate

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Let vision bloom at debate

You can tell that times are good by the flowers in everyone's yards. Chrysanthemums in all colors, carefully tended impatiens that refuse to let go of summer, marigolds so big they look like dahlias, dahlias so big they look like sunflowers. Everywhere there are pots and plots of flowering things that disappear with the season, that people go out and buy and then replace with other things they go out and buy. How not frugal is this?

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Fun of August wanes as Ferris wheel ceases

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Fun of August wanes as Ferris wheel ceases

Every year, for many years, since I first read Natalie Babbitt's wonderful children's book "Tuck Everlasting" to my children who are now grown, I have celebrated Top of the Ferris Wheel Day. "The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning," Babbitt wrote. "The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn." The first week of August, she believed was magical.

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Heaven can be seen along familiar roads

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Heaven can be seen along familiar roads

I am prepared for moments of divine intimation, while on vacation, while driving through the Rockies or sitting on a rock in Maine or walking along some tropical beach. Epiphanies, those heady moments of sudden knowing and peace, occur in the midst of beauty and solitude, not on crowded Route 138 in Stoughton. But it happened there this week, on a road without charm and not a whole lot of trees, everything green and innately beautiful knocked down or paved over.

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No Longer Pup, Molly Mellows in Dog Years

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No Longer Pup, Molly Mellows in Dog Years

I should have taken her to the vet weeks ago. She's been dragging around for at least that long, her gait a little slower these days, her eyes a little less bright. I notice these things, but I ignore them. I sit on the floor and scratch her ears and pat her head and say, "How's my puppy?" And she sighs and wags her tail, the way she has always done. I see that the hair under her chin is more white than black and that there are tufts of white under her belly and that…

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Memorial Day gives reason to pause and remember dead

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Memorial Day gives reason to pause and remember dead

For most of my early life, I never thought of Memorial Day in terms of remembering the dead. Memorial Day was, in my untroubled youth, simply the celebrated beginning of summer: time to polish white shoes, iron the seersucker suit (there was always a seersucker suit), dig out last year's shorts and sandals, stock up on suntan lotion and get ready to soak in three months of sun-filled days and moonlit nights. When I was even younger, Memorial Day meant that the amusement park at Nantasket Beach and the drive-in at Neponset were finally open. But what you see depends upon where you're standing and what you're looking at. ..

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Baseball, robins, neighbors announce arrival of spring

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Baseball, robins, neighbors announce arrival of spring

It snowed Friday, horrid stuff, and it's a bit chilly today but tomorrow is the first day of spring. And I know it's on its way because Wednesday I saw my first sign: neighbor Al outside with his wheelbarrow, working away. Forget crocuses and robins. There he was, my very own harbinger, across the street in his bright yellow hat (a hard plastic thing he's had since he lived in Quincy, he once explained), light aqua jacket with a little pink trim, (very colorful), blue jeans and sneakers and work gloves, rake in one hand, shovel in the other, scooping up a winter's worth of dead leaves…

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Nephew calls and Milton mom lands in movie

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Nephew calls and Milton mom lands in movie

She is not your typical movie star. She sings in the choir at St. Elizabeth's in Milton, MA. . She works in the advertising department at The Boston Globe. When her husband died at 34, she had four children, aged 1, 5, 7 and 8. The 7-year-old suffered seizures and permanent mental impairment from an inoculation. He died two years later.

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No time to stop to let a funeral drive on by

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No time to stop to let a funeral drive on by

I cut her some slack, the not-so-young woman who gave me the finger and mouthed the companion epithet. I thought, OK, maybe she's from another country and doesn't know the rule about funeral processions having the right of way. Maybe this cortege of cars with headlights on in the middle of a sunny day, funeral flags on each roof, was a new experience for her.

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Love That Grows with Time Carries a Much Sweeter Tune

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I know that if I looked in the plastic storage box under the bed, I'd find Valentine's Day cards I sent to my husband when we were first married. I must have sent him valentines in the beginning.I sent him all kinds of cards back then: "Missing you," "Thinking of you," "There's no one like you."It didn't matter that his birthday was the day before Valentine's Day and that his birthday card and Valentine's Day card would say the same thing.

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This train's got the dismaying railroad blues

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This train's got the dismaying railroad blues

I spoke - or wrote - too soon. Sunday I praised Amtrak. Today I have to eat my words. Sunday I said my ride to New York late last week was convenient and comfortable and quick. Today I report that my ride back from New York Sunday evening was none of the above. I should have known we were in trouble when we didn't pull out of Penn Station at 4:55 p.m. as scheduled, but started heading south instead. Seems there was a stalled train on our track so we had to take another track. No problem, we'd make up the lost time.

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Retiree stuck with SS error

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Retiree stuck with SS error

It arrived among her Christmas cards, a dunning letter informing Mary Dowd of Somerville that Social Security had made a mistake, and that she, not Social Security, was going to have to pay for this mistake. "We are writing to give you new information about the retirement benefits which you receive," the letter began, "how we paid you $ 7,874 too much in benefits [and] how you can pay us back. You should refund the overpayment within 30 days."

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Didn't beauty used to come from within?

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Didn't beauty used to come from within?

Of course I read every word of Boston magazine's cover story, "Do You Need A Facelift?" The question seemed personally addressed to me. I hate the lines on my face and my droopy eyelids and the age spots on my hands and the creeping invisibility that comes with age. And I envy all the women I know who have had surgery. They look young and taut and confident.

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Living 'Angela's Ashes' was more painful than book, movie

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Living 'Angela's Ashes' was more painful than book, movie

The worst thing about the movie "Angela's Ashes" isn't that it's a bad film. That it's too long and grim and plodding and depressing, and that it's an indictment of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the Irish themselves doesn't matter. It's only a movie. It'll be gone from conversation and the big screen in a few weeks and relegated to video stores a few months later.

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