Saturday morning I filled a box of homemade cookies-by-the pound to get ahead with my "baking" and support the Salvation Army, walked in the snow to the last holiday craft bazaar at the ANB Hall, and found some nice soap and candles, bread and chocolate, and a maple leaf ornament,  ran home, ate a little lunch and snow-shoed in the still-falling snow ( perfect- soft and fluffy and 20 degrees) up to Lily Lake. 

"How necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy. It is a psychological truth that the physical acts of reverence and devotion make one feel devout. The courteous gesture increases one's respect for others. To act lovingly is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act joyfully brings joy to others which in turn makes one feel joyful. I believe we are called to the duty of delight." -Dorothy Day

When I wrote my first book I was run over by a truck. Literally. So I'm used to how the universe encourages humility and emphasizes what really matters. While my daughter was in labor last Friday, one of the many calls to my cell phone was a number I didn't recognize.

My friend Teresa came by to meet little Miss Molly before we both left for home in Haines on the ferry yesterday.

Teresa wedged about a dozen totes and coolers on the only baggage cart (what was the ferry thinking?) that were mostly full of her husband Larry's dead deer from hunting in Tenakee. It was one of those only in Alaska moments as they hefted them on the cart in between suitcases, duffels, and Christmas packages.

"Give us grateful hearts, our Father, for all thy mercies, and 
make us mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen." -- from the Book of Common Prayer

Little Molly Frances is here! ( All 6. lbs.15 oz and 19 inches... and what about her hair? Well, It has a reddish tinge.. so time will tell.) Mother and baby are well.

The rest of us are too.Having a December baby makes singing "Joy to the World" that much better.

Eliza has been very busy while we wait. Knitting. Baking. Making origami ornaments.

James has even been painting, and his mother has made a nice holiday display of his art work. (Clearly a gifted child!)

Waiting for  a baby in December in a little northern city, with snow falling and the neighborhood Christmas lights twinkling all but perhaps an hour or two of these short winter days, is kind of nice, actually. Well, if you are not the one nine months and four days pregnant. (Easy for you to say, my daughter will say. My son-in-law is ready to move on with life too, as he paired down his office schedule this week for the baby who isn't here yet.

That's Watch! pray! watch! in Bach's German from the cantata he wrote and that was first perfomed for the second Sunday in Advent in 1716. That year it was December 6. Three hundred years later I heard it in Chapel by The Lake in Juneau on Sunday Dec. 4. I will say it makes me feel grateful for my mother's emphasis on our church music education, but honestly?

"Charity - giving to the poor - is an essential part of Christian morality.... I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare."
-  C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.