In the refrigerator there lays a cornucopia of left overs. In good conscious one cannot simply throw all these goodies out. On the other hand eating everything would change our body into something other than human.
What to do.
Maybe the neighbor's cat would like cheese and pie. Should I leave the bread for the birds?
Clearly the challenge is to assuage the guilt of possible waste. The guilt of any perceived gluttony.
The solution is a potluck of leftovers.
A leftover's party.
Now it is established that leftovers will be a good excuse for all of us to get together and debrief Christmass.
Leftovers can be the stone soup of holidays and a good reason to enjoy each others company without the rituals of the season.

The real present of a giving holiday is other's being present.

On a desert island, the castaway puts a message in a bottle. Tossed in the ocean with the hope that it will be washed upon a distant shore where civilization will find it and send help.
Now the junk flushed from land flows into the ocean and floats about to be eventually washed up in some distant or local beach. Mostly plastic bits and chunks this flotsam and jetsom has a message of it's own.
Sometimes our spirit can be like a castaway. It tosses messages out that float in the sea of our life. Most of the time we are disinterested. But then there are the times we pickup the "message in a bottle."
The holidays are like big waves in the ocean of life. Waves of emotion, feelings, thoughts, and reflections get tossed to the shores of our consciousness. When we walk the beach of our consciousness we may find, washed up like the flotsam and jetsom from some storm, a message in a bottle.

Walking along they said nothing. Sitting in the waiting room, they read magazines. Riding in the car the conversation was the flutter of wet laundry in the wind. At the table they spoke the days river of events.
And then, late at night, laying side by side they spoke of the things as if disembodied voices in the dark. They cried, they laughed, they were flush with anger, they were resolute with communion, and they finally slept.

What was their sharing place?
The sharing place is where you want it. It can be the times where people; friends, family, co-workers, and others come together. Together there is sharing space.
A sharing place is about us humans in communion. A communion of experience, of place. What we do with that time, that place is up to us.
The sharing comes with the open heart, not an open pocket book.

In sharing we give the gift that cannot be bought or sold and it lives in our hearts forever and a day. It is when we bear witness to our experience of this world, of our selves, of what we feel and of what we think.
Thank you for letting me share and thank you for sharing;
In this sharing place.

Holidays, for what ever reason we may conceive of, are filled with a profusion of feelings.
We feel a mixture. Feelings of sadness and joy, sometimes together. We feel pressure and anxiety which may be blended in proportion to anticipation and excitement.
This year's season there seems to be some ice feelings. Maybe it is due to politics, or the economy, or some dark things happening in the world.
Darkness brings the ice and then we move like ice bergs through the holiday season.
let us make Ice bergs be ice cubes in a refreshing drink, or plops of ice cream in hot coffee or hot chocolate.
Let ice berg people flow by us while we are before the warmth of friends, family or simply looking into the flickering light of warm memories from seasons past.
And if an Ice berg person should come your way let the warm hearth of your heart show them the way.

We dream. We have those dreams at night that can be quite perplexing, or something that resulted from a pizza. Then there are dreams we have in our lives. We have our dream car, dream house, dream spouse, dream pet, dream job, and our dream retirement.
But there is a kicker in dreams. The kicker is when we finally get what we dreamed about.
Somehow, the object of our dream, when we finally get it is not as great as our fantasy about it. Sour grapes? maybe not. Dreams give us a sense of purpose, a goal beyond our daily grind and routine. Dreams offer a place of pleasant possibilities, and are like little promises of a better life, a respite, or attainment.

When Dreams come true, sometimes they have their bittersweet side. Being retired and finding we are bored. Getting the home we want and being overwhelmed with maintaining it. Getting the car we want but....and so on. Sometimes getting the dream we worked for is like painting ourselves into a corner.

The dreams that come true that are the best seem to be the ones we didn't realize we dreamt of.
They are the suprise of a scoop of ice cream, a new friend to laugh with, or something unexpected that we has always wanted, somewhere in the back of our mind.
They are the dream dessert of life's subtle blessings.