Xmas traditions

I wrote a Xmas post last week and scheduled it to post today but cyber space seems to have wafted it away. So I'll attempt to rather quickly reproduce it. I spend a lot of my spare time this week decorating the house. I simply adore Xmas. Don't have a real tree anymore as I'm against cutting all those beautiful firs down, but have a small artificial one that works just fine. So the house looks lovely. We live only a few miles from the Ecke poinsettia farm, which supplies over 90% of the poinsettias in the United States. Naturally I concentrate on them.

I have a Xmas tradition passed down from my grandmother to me, and now my daughter and granddaughter. We burn a bayberry candle on Xmas eve. It must be burned to the socket,and bayberry candles are getting harder and harder to find. The verse I learned is "A bayberry candle, burned to the socket, brings health to the home and wealth to the pocket." The candle must be bayberry and it must be allowed to burn itself out. Often we've placed the candle in the kitchen sink for safety and let it burn. For some reason I'm obsessive about this. Anybody wanna analyze me?

I'm gonna add a quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt which seems appropriate. "One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." Something to think about as I chase around this week looking for bayberry candles.