let it be christmas.

Let it be Christmas everywhere
In the hearts of all people
Both near and afar
Christmas everywhere
Feel the love of the season where ever you are
On the small country roads
Lined with green mistletoe
Big city streets where a thousand lights glow

Let it be Christmas everywhere
Let heavenly music fill the air
Let every heart sing let every bell ring
The story of hope and joy and peace
And let it be Christmas everywhere
Let heavenly music fill the air
Let anger and fear and hate disappear
Let there be love that lasts through the year
Let it be Christmas
Christmas everywhere

Let it be Christmas everywhere
With the gold and silver, the green and the red
Christmas everywhere
In the smiles of all children asleep in their beds
In the eyes of young babies their first fallen snow
Elderly's memories that never grow old...

---

A friend shared her Christmas playlist with me and this song was on it. As I walked to Starbucks this morning, I had tears in my eyes as I listened to it. I'm still listening to it on repeat as I write this.

The lyrics really speak to me. (Cheesy? Maybe, but true? Definitely.)

Christmas was hard for me growing up because as exciting and magic-filled as it was, there were also elements of anger and fear. I'm trying to change that for my kids. Year-round, not just at Christmastime.

Clarke slept through his first snow, but he doesn't know, so his second (or third or fourth) can be his first. And I'm sure he and Mabel will both be asleep in their beds with smiles.

And just yesterday I got a card from Fran, my Grampy George's wife. I cried because she thought of me and my family, and because it's the first year that my Grampy didn't write it and address it himself in his familiar calligraphy. I hope he has a happy Christmas even though it's his first in a nursing home.

Anyway, enough rambling from me. Let it be Christmas wherever you are.

P.S. My first Christmas abroad and the song that got me through.