By Karen and Erica

It’s Christmas Eve.

We hope you are ready, if you celebrate Christmas, because otherwise you are in trouble. It will be hard to pull everything together today—the gifts, the food, the decorations.

We are more or less ready, though the celebratory spirit is elusive this year. We wish we could give everyone, in a perfectly wrapped box under a gorgeous tree, a magic wand to make COVID go away and our communities come back to bustling life. We wish we could invite our friends who are alone to come over for a bit of cheer. We’re tired of silent nights and streets where not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. We wish things were very very different. Noisier. More boisterous. More joy to the world.

Tonight, we will watch All Is Calm, on PBS. If it is on your PBS station, you should too. The play tells the story, in their own words, of some of the soldiers who participated in the Christmas Truce of 1914. Magical. We cried, and will surely cry again.

Tomorrow, we will sleep late, eat well, hug whoever is available for hugging, and be glad for the amazing gifts so many people have given us this year, including especially the gift of new friendships.

Merry Christmas.