On the fifth day of Christmas...

Time marches on... The puppy has gone to a better home with better training. Life at Tam Lin is much calmer as a result. In the fall I started teaching folk dance part time at the Monadnock Waldorf School, and have found much joy and more and more doors opening in the world of Waldorf Education. My DD is even applying to the Waldorf Teacher Training graduate program at a local university!

Pie Night has grown and is one of our greatest joys. It is in fact one of the most "spiritual" acts of community we participate in. Dear folks gather together in the same space on the same day and time each week. We share music, songs, and a communal meal, followed by a social time that intermingles with more music. We gather for a common purpose and build loving bonds. Feels like the best kind of church! In fact, this whole month has brought gentle unfolding revelations to me. I love the mystery and magic of Advent, so as usual didn't let any festive activity intrude until Dec. 1, when I get up early and play the album that starts it all as it has every December for the past 25 years: George Winston's December. We have an Advent moss garden, and day by day decorations are added, more festive music is played, and about halfway through the month, it really begins to feel like what I like to think of as "Yuletide".

There is the busyness of Animaterra concerts and the Nelson Solstice Party, preparing gifts and food, and each event is a marker in the festivities. Concerts, parties, Pie Night, all are a part of it. Christmas Eve this year was the loveliest in years, as it fell on a Pie Night and we invited families of the usual gang, played our music by candlelight and tree light, and ate if possible even more and richer food. Maggie, Lizza, Matt and Brea snuck out at one point and came up the driveway, swinging a lantern, dressed in crazy rags and capes, wearing colanders and such, and banging pots and pans and singing the Louisiana Rag Dance Wassail. We sang carols, hugged and got teary. It was a glorious evening. Christmas Day was yet another day of beauty. Our friend Michael is here from Florida. Our friend Al, my mother and her spouse came for the midday festivities. Our good friends Marcy and Hans just happened to stop by as we were preparing to eat a picnic lunch in the living room. Love and joy came to us.

But Yuletide doesn't end on the 25th. We are enjoying our Twelve Days of Christmas! We still have music to play. We played for an annual dance Dudley Laufman calls on Boxing Day in Keene. On Monday we will drive to Ossippee to call and play a New Year's Eve dance at a conference center. Next week is Twelfth Night, and we will go to the annual Breaking Up Christmas party at the Hammonds' in Brookline, Mass. Finally we will let go of Yuletide and bid it farewell for another year.

And the seasons, they go round and round.

Can it possibly really have been a whole year since my last post? I'm sorry. Life is so rich and full, it's hard sometimes to take the time to put it all down in writing. Our family has grown! Working chronologically backwards, in May, dearest daughter Maggie moved home!

She spent a "retail year" following her graduation from college, and is now embarked on a period of self-discovery and discernment which we all hope will lead to her next adventures in life. We are very glad to have her here! Backing up, in April we adopted a second Potcake pup. Meet Posie!

She is a perky girl and is well loved by all, including Nellie. Our biggest addition(s) however, are the jammers who now come regularly to our house to play wonderful music! It's the Live Free and Pie Jam, started by a group of wonderful young folks who wanted to play the kind of music we play. Hunt said, "Come to our house!" I said, "I'll bake pie!" And the rest is history. We have met weekly since October, and these folks, and the additional ones who come and go from time to time, give us great joy and delight as we play music, eat pie and other delicious goodies, and share our lives together.

Finally, Hunt is working on violin #4, which will be the next new member of the family. He has sold #s 1-3, and we are so very grateful for the success of the business, the abundance of the garden, and above all, for the love that permeates our lives.