Epiphany

Today we celebrated Epiphany (which was actually yesterday). We Three Kings of Orient Are is one of my favorite Christmas hymns and this morning we sang all the verses during church services. When I was a little girl the priest would hand each child a small brown paper bag of hard Christmas candies at the end of Mass on Epiphany Sunday.

A New Tradition--The Birthday Passion

For my birthday, every year, I've decided to not to buy myself something but to indulge in something I never expect to master. My first Birthday Passion will be a simple gift: Charles Dickens Thursdays. Every Thursday evening, I will give myself one hour to read Charles Dickens. I'll start with, what else, but A Christmas Carol. The beauty of this passion is that I will have to read Dickens only for that hour. There will be no rushing to finish the book for a book club or a class. It won't matter if I read ten pages or a hundred.

This gift is an offshot of my "Hundred Things I Want to Do Before I Die" list. Yes, there are more difficult and complex things on that list--learn to play the violin is one--but going to library school and working plus all the other extra activities and projects I've added are enough for now and I'll save the more complicated ones as gifts for other years.