With love and joy for the season and the new year.

I was sitting on the front steps of the night market in Chiang Mai tonight, surrounded by glittering embroderies, dark wooden carvings, and charcoal paintings, and listened to a small Thai school band playing "Joy to The World". Imagine what it would mean for heaven and nature to sing. The world exploding colorful and musical joy.

I hope you Christmas and New Years begin to bring that feeling to your life. Mine, here in Northern Thailand, will be celebrated with tinsel from Burma and a Christmas tree that is actually a green lampshade with small ornaments from the Chiang Rai night market. Christmas dinner will be a full out Turkey feast at the local Irish pub (?!). The celebrations will include going to an elephant rehabilitation center and seeing injured elephants are cared for. The signs of Christmas here are rare but when they appear, they come with the full force of joy and fun that Christmas diserves. The band in the market, the occasional santa hat, the little girl who came up to me with candy and said, with a shy smile, "Merry Christmas, I hope you have a beautiful life."