Ahem. So you may have noticed (or maybe not) that last Thursday I shut the computer for a Christmas break without publishing a three beautiful things post. My run-in to the holidays got a little crazy and it just slipped my notice, and the people who would normally remind me that I’d missed it have also been celebrating and not paying attention to this space. However, the only time I totally failed to share three beautiful things was when my grandmother died and that was an intentional decision, and I’d like to keep it that way. So, here, belatedly, are three beautiful things from the week before Christmas:

1. Rudi takes back over the driving in central New Jersey so I can more fully enjoy the Christmas lights along the Garden State Parkway from the passenger seat.

2. Parking lots are full, but all the shops I run into on Christmas Eve have very short lines.

3. To my surprise, tickets to see Darlene Love’s holiday concert in D.C. were still available on the evening of the show, but spending money on yourself at Christmas is not really in the budget. I remembered suddenly I’d squirreled away as mad money two cash gifts from my uncle before he died — and that it was nearly the exact price of the tickets. My uncle had a great love of music and of Christmas so I felt certain that he would think this was a perfect use of his final Christmas presents to me.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world recently?

(I’ll be back again on New Year’s Eve with beautiful things from this week.)

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Walking past the charity bookshop, I see they’ve announced a half-price sale on cds. Six new Christmas albums have been added to the collection for the whopping cost of three dollars and change.

2. Metro track maintenance work means if you’re traveling outside of rush hour that you may have to wait for quite a while between trains. I arrive trackside at my home stop to see the taillights of the train disappearing into the tunnel and a 20-minute wait-time for the next train (to reach a destination that is less than half an hour walk). My transit app tells me that a bus heading downtown will be at the far exit of the station in a minute (there’s a traffic circle involved, so I know I may have a little wiggle time), so I hustle my way out, only to watch the bus drive past as I’m approaching the stop. I nearly catch up at the next bus stop, when the light turns green. Resolving just to walk in the rain, I see that the driver has noticed me and stopped the bus so I can get on.

3. I’ve enjoyed watching the moon each evening, progressing through the week from a Cheshire Cat moon to a mandarin wedge. (It will be full on Christmas Day for the first time since 1977, in case you want to take a peek.)

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Every Thursday, I share beautiful things from my past week. Here are three from this week:

1. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings performed on Tuesday night at the Lincoln Theatre in a show destined to go down in my top ten of all time, if not the top five. The band is tight. The backing singers, who also served as the opening act, harmonized amazingly. And Jones has an amazing energy and attitude that is apparent in her recorded music, but it springs to the fore when seeing her on stage. She strutted, she pranced, she worked her way through all the popular dances of the ’60s. She kept it real by coming out in fancy gold shoes, then asking someone to bring her her flip-flops when her feet started hurting, and then kicking those off, too, when she wanted to bop around stage. And then she opened her mouth and, oh! She belted out those songs as if not only her life depended on it, but also the lives of everyone in the building. All I can say is there’s a reason they call it soul music. The woman has just finished her second round of chemo in three years for a type of cancer that she shared her doctors tell her won’t go into remission. But, she said, doctors only know what doctors know. She declared that as long as her voice worked and she had a microphone, she would go on.

2. Every November the orchids that my late uncle gave me for my birthday several years ago start to bud. I always think that they’ll bloom for his birthday, while I’m away for Thanksgiving, but each time they hold off just a few more days and bloom instead when I get back to the office.

3. We get in touch with the landlord about a handful of plumbing issues and over the past week we’ve had our toilet, hot water, bathroom faucet, kitchen faucet, and countertop repaired or upgraded. It’s nice not to have to deal with any of those niggling problems any more.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Every Thursday I share beautiful things from the previous week. These are just three of this week’s:

1. I run into Panera, a fast-food bakery/restaurant, for a bagel for a late lunch. The guy at the counter throws a second bagel into the bag and asks me to grab a free cup of coffee or tea as his treat.

2. A seven-and-a-half hour commute home on a holiday weekend. (For comparison, our fastest ever drive from Connecticut to D.C. was six-and-a-half hours, which we managed just once in the past 12 years. Normally it’s eight’ish.)

3. After days of grey and rain, this morning I awoke to sunshine and brilliant blue skies.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. At a time of year I rarely see either sunrise or sunset, I saw both in a single day. Dawn was pinkish, while the sun set more orangey.

2. I’m listening to the audiobook of Anne of Green Gables, and it’s clear from her pronunciation that the reader, Colleen Winton, is Canadian. Rudi noted that her voice reminds him of Colleen Dewhurst, who played Marilla in the wonderful tv movies. I don’t know if he’s right (it’s been several years since I last saw the show (Ooh! I should see if DCPL has a copy to borrow)), but she definitely does a fantastic job with Marilla’s part. She’s a very comforting companion during late-night chores.

3. My bathroom is very clean after a marathon scouring session.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

It’s Thursday, so it’s time to reflect on three beautiful things from my past week:

1. If Starbucks didn’t launch the gingerbread latte trend, they at least furthered it significantly, and people understandably look forward fondly to this time of the year for a tasty seasonal beverage. We tea drinkers have gone neglected, though, with even their Joy tea disappearing last year. This year, though, they’ve introduced a gingerbread chai tea latte, which is delicious.

2. I try a new-to-me dessert from Chatpat, our vegetarian Indian food truck. Ras malai is a farmer’s cheese served in a fragrant, herb-infused cream sauce; it’s not too sweet, but very tasty. (Do you sense a theme?)

3. The weather has been especially mild this week, allowing for short sleeves and no jacket several days in a row. Temperatures are about to drop again to more seasonal averages, so it’s been nice to have one last warm streak for the year.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?