On the Sixth Day of a Feminine Christmas

Merry Christmas readers!

This is an illustration of a sweet brother and sister gathering greens for the holiday.  Sibling love was a piquant element of artist Tasha Tudor’s gentle Christmas artwork and missing my bother Paul very much this year, I gravitated toward this one for my Christmas Day post.

Especially on Christmas Eve, past Christmases often visit.  I remember my grandmother’s Christmas corsage that my mother bought from the florist at the end of our street, the way the neighbors’ houses looked lit up at five o’clock in the morning, Bing Crosby wistfully crooning from the stereo, and the delectable aroma of Christmas dinner cooking away in the oven.  I remember the crystal glasses on the holly-infused tablecloth in the dining room sparkling in the rays of sunshine coming through the window, the scratchy bright velvet Christmas dresses I wore, and of course, the Christmas tree beckoning from the corner and making a place for us to sit beneath near the spitting and crackling fire.

These renderings are of a world long-gone for sure, but they offer a blueprint and treasure map for the better days that will surely come again…