All day I felt giddy anticipating the reaction to an unexpected, bountiful BONUS. What fun for me to see her STARE with huge, incredulous eyes at the stack of bills tucked in the card. The magic for the season, every year it happens one way or another.

Perhaps it started the year my 9 year old self dragged home a discarded Christmas tree found in an alley. I set forth to bring about some kind of magic for my mother, which really was for me. Pulled it with a STRAP about a mile.

That little Lord Jesus born on some STRAW, he and his mother both outcast miracles, light bearers. And there I was, centuries later, a child walking the alleys like some kind of STRAY, trying to bring light and joy to a mother as poor as the Virgin Mary.

Heather