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“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” drifts through the supermarket speakers and I find myself smiling before I can stop it. That song carries a long-standing family joke, one of my relatives confidently singing, “Jack Frost nibbling in your nose…”…the kind of tiny, silly misstep that sticks for years and warms me every time it resurfaces. It’s in moments like these that I’m reminded connection doesn’t always arrive with grand gestures. Often, it slips in sideways: a shared glance, a familiar lyric, a private laugh echoing quietly through time.
Has this happened to you? A song, a scent, a gateway to somewhere back there in a treasure chest of memory where something sweet lived and it surfaces and you are temporary held in the warmth of what was a good moment?
This year, as the season gathers speed around me, I’ve been thinking about the softer ways we connect. One way that can take the sting of over working or over extending is through giving. Not the big, hurried, Black-Friday-cart-overflowing-rushing-kind of giving, but the subtle, sensory kind that seems to stitch people together in quiet, lasting ways. Today, my kitchen smelled like heaven as I’ve finally perfected my Masala chai blend. I call it my Smilin’ Chai, the warming spices blooming through the house while cool winter sunshine spilling through the windows bringing that subtle Buddha smile to my cheeks. I’ve been mixing jars to bring into the office, and others to gift…tiny containers of flavor, comfort, and intention. It feels playful, almost like bottling a bit of the season’s magic.
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