Christmas Eve is three weeks from today. That thought is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. Instead of continuing to focus on how few hours fit into 21 days, let’s cast our eyes backwards and reflect on three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Feeling tired, cranky, and generally achy, I lie down for half an hour. I feel so much better when I get up.

2. Julia and I had made plans to meet for lunch Monday. Knowing there would be a friendly face halfway through the day made it that much easier to go back to work after five days off.

3. Today’s entries in the Virtual Advent Tour include a look at Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” I can’t remember if I own a text version of the story, but I have an LP of Thomas reading it. Wanting to share it, since Nymeth mentioned how the language practically demands to be read aloud, I found a copy of it on NPR that gives additional background information on its recording. Dylan being Dylan, it really is an incomparably beautiful aural experience. “I said some words to the close and holy darkness and then I slept.”

What’s been beautiful in your world during these days of shortened light?