The Sweet Spot of the Year

Every year ends in the best possible way. Even the lean, mean years taper out though golden-leaved light and into bright icy blue air that twinkles red and green. The oppressive heat and humidity of the summer and early autumn give way to the fresh, the cold, the invigorating.

But it's more than changes in light and temperature. It's a time that wraps its arms around family and sweet traditions.

Much of it depends on childhood memories and trigger-emotions created and nurtured early on by our mothers and daddies, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, good friends. Consciously or unconsciously, family and friends-like-family played out those Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas traditions year after year, adding a little here, a little there as new members were welcomed into our lives.

Now, the calendar pages peal off toward December 31. The smells, the stories, the DNA-bred-in-the-bone feelings come together to anchor and inspire us. The golds of autumn and the red and green Christmas lights remind us to connect. To embrace. To give thanks. To laugh. To love.

And I need that internal assurance that I'm a part of a whole - a closely woven fabric of family and friends. It's what makes this the sweet spot of the year.