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The Midlife Second Wife ™

~ The Real and True Adventures of Remarriage at Life's Midpoint

The Midlife Second Wife ™

Tag Archives: Christmas and holiday season

May Light Find and Follow You This Holiday Season

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Special Events

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Christmas and holiday season, Family, friendship, Hanukah, Holidays, Joy, Love, Peace

Christmas2014To all of my readers, fellow bloggers, family and friends—

Just because I’ve been writing a book and blogging less frequently doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about you. As the days have grown shorter and darker, I’m reminded of all the places where I’ve found light and warmth over the past few years. One of those places is right here, on this blog, writing for you, and sharing with you. The Midlife Second Wife is where I’ve made some lasting friendships, met more wonderful people than any WordPress statistic could reveal, and where I’ve encountered extraordinary opportunities. This is never more evident to me than when I’m caught up in preparations for the holiday season. Why is this so? I think it’s because this is such a mindful time of year—a time when we move through our days with particular intention, when we think of the people we love who are no longer here, and the ones we cannot wait to greet with open arms.

I wish you and your loved ones all the illumination and warmth of the holiday season—whether generated by a menorah, by the light from a mosque, by the moon and stars, or, as at our home, by the twinkling candles of a Christmas tree. May the light find you and shine upon you gently, and may peace, love, and happiness be yours, now and throughout the New Year.

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From my Home to Yours, Happy Holidays!

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in House and Garden, Special Events

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Christmas and holiday season, Holiday, Holiday greetings, New Year

Rich_FullMoonChristmascrpd

Photo credit: John Rich

By the light of the silvery (full) moon earlier this month, I wish you and yours a happy holiday and a joyous new year!

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Greetings, Midlife Friends!

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Humor Me, Special Events, The Life Poetic

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

bloggers, boomers, Christmas and holiday season, midlife, writers

HollyDecember is here, and so time again
For season’s greetings to fine blogger friends.
A new group in town—this is no canard—
Broke ground along Midlife Boulevard.

With style and wit (but no fountain pen),
On bandwidth they ply their acumen.
For editors Mesdames Greenthal and Parris,
I bestow a day off with Bueller, Ferris.

Oh, the places they’ll go! The things they will see!
As they ride alongside that blonde, Shelley Z.
There to help them avoid a hazardous turn
Are Vikki Claflin and Jessica Bern.

May they shop ‘til they drop on Avenue Worth
(Laughing heartily with these ladies of mirth:
Tracy Beckerman, Jane Emaus, Barb Best, Tammy Bleck)
Let’s all end the night at a fun discotheque!

All roads lead to Rome (or New York or Boston),
So let’s give some plane tickets to Karen Austin.
When she arrives she’ll have fun pallin’
With Laurel Regan and Sandra Sallin.

Don’t look now (I said please don’t look)
But huddled together in a quiet nook,
And dining intime in this posh galleria,
Are Lisa Carpenter and Andy Garcia.

Oh my, Grandma! I best be brief
So as not to disturb your aperitif.
Far be it from me to annoy and to pester.
I’ll just go sit by my friend Cathy Chester.

We’ve much shopping to do, anyhow, anyway,
For Princess Rosebud and Judy Rothman Rofé.
Seashells for one, madeleines for the other.
For Risa Nye, a song sung by Usher.

What shall we buy Evelyn Kalinosky?
(And what shall we rhyme? Why, I know! Brioschi!)
May Evelyn never encounter distress.
But instead whirl around in a Furstenberg dress!

Here is my gift for the writer Jane Gassner:
A peck on the check from the actor Ed Asner,
May he star in a screenplay written by Jane,
Produced by our own Kim Jorgensen Gane.

And while we’re back on the subject of actors,
Let us take time to note an important factor:
Before there is acting there must be the word.
Actors are not just seen, they must also be heard.

So for blogger Mary Anne Tuggle Payne,
I’ve ordered a snuggle from Eddie Redmayne.
And a prayer for Barbara Hannah Grufferman,
That she’ll not find herself Waiting for Guffman.

But adieu, Hollywood, because we’ve a lotta
Travelin’ to do with Mindy Klapper Trotta.
We’ll head to Europe, but first to Great Britain
Come along, Rosalind Warren and Helene Cohen Bludman!

At Harrod’s we’ll purchase some brilliant bling
For Felice Shapiro and Shelley Emling.
For Ellen Dolgen, great closets of shoes.
Your usual suspects: Manolos and Choos.)

When dining in London, rare Beef Wellington
For Julie Phelps and Mary Dell Harrington.
In Italy we can’t forget the other Lisas—
Heffernan, Flowers, and Froman—we’ll order you pizzas!

Here’s haute couture from Paris
For Estelle Sobel Erasmus,
And Belgium chocolate, rich and dark,
for our idol, Lois Alter Mark.

P.K. Fields says that our time is now,
So to her a gold Rolex—oh golly! Oh wow!
Oh WHOA! When what do my wondering eyes appear,
Darryle Pollack and Lynn Forbes—they’re here!

They’re here! Their network’s a hit. (Have you seen it?)
Great chatter, great topics. (Proud to have been on it.)
To this dynamic duo we bestow
Two life-size Golden Globes.

Hard to carry around, but hey, what the hay?
YOLO, you know? Or so they say.
For the gentle and kind Lori Lavender Luz,
We’ve booked passage on a Viking River Cruise.

For intrepid traveler Carol Cassara,
An exquisitely jeweled ruby tiara.
And for Judy Krell Freedman and Sheryl Kraft,
A grand yacht apiece, complete with life rafts.

For the writer with the wondrous surname—
Barbara Storey—an inextinguishable flame.
And to she who won’t lean-in—Julie Danis—
I wish joy in her new-found work-and-life balance.

To all of the bloggers and writers called here,
I send you glad tidings and eggnog and cheer!
To those I forgot, I hope you’ll forgive
The poetic lapse in my narrative.

We’ll do this again in two thousand fourteen,
So I’ll see you back here midst the red and the green.
And my readers and followers, you know who you are,
Peace, love, and joy on your own boulevard.

To read the holiday poem from 2012, click here.

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Black Friday? No Thanks. Just Black Coffee with Cream and Time with Family

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Money Matters

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

BlackFriday, Christmas and holiday season, Thanksgiving

MorgueFile Images

So here I am, on what used to be known as the day after Thanksgiving but is now generally referred to as Black Friday. I’m sitting in my son’s girlfriend’s sweet little house, and we’re chatting, drinking coffee with cream, and marveling at the myriad e-mails stuffing our inboxes—advertisements for deep-discounted this, Black Friday that, and get ‘em before they’re gone whatevers.

Whatever.

I understand—and sympathize with—the fact that many people have a real and serious need in this economy to hit the stores in the wee hours to obtain the best deal possible on Christmas gifts for their families. We’re in that boat, too. But I can’t bring myself to enter a store at midnight. I barely enjoy shopping during normal hours. I suppose this is my age speaking; when I was young, I used to love to shop.

Money is tight. John and I will figure out a creative way to honor our family during the holidays. And we’ve already given each other our Christmas gift: our impromptu trip to New York City. And so I’m just lollygagging, spending time with Jenny while Matt gets ready for work and John catches some extra sleep. I’m drinking coffee and doing something I rarely have time to do: I’m relaxing. This is a free day, and we’re 500 miles from home. We’ll meet some friends for lunch and more friends at dinner—friends that we haven’t seen in more than a year. There will be no shopping involved. And I’m fine with this. I suspect it might even be good for us in ways other than our wallets.

TIME magazine, in its issue for June 24, 2011, published a fascinating series of articles about money. In J.D. Roth’s article, “Money Can’t Buy Happiness—Or Can It?” he writes:

Experiences tend to make us happier than material things. We have different reactions to the money we spend on experiences and the money we spend on material goods: When we spend on experiences, our perceptions are magnified (meaning we feel happier or sadder than when we spend on stuff), and the feelings tend to linger longer. And since most of our experiences are positive, spending on activities instead of things generally makes us happier.

This I believe: Money can’t buy you love, and it can’t buy you happiness. I am programmed to believe this because I grew up never having much of it. I’m inclined to believe this because I did find love and I did find happiness, two critically important factors to a good quality of life. John says that he’s never possessed so little materialistically since the days early in his adulthood when he was teaching elementary school—and he’s never been happier. The same is true for me. We clip coupons, scrimp, and do without things that have turned out to be wholly unnecessary to our well-being. But time spent with our family is vital to our well-being, and so this trip to Ohio will fuel us with happiness far longer than an iPad would for me, or a summer of Sundays playing golf would for John.

Now, if I could no longer afford coffee, then we’d have a real problem …

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