Counting down the days to Christmas with a daily morning post containing a photograph of the White House Christmas decorations.  Have no clue why someone Jewish is doing this or how I got all these pictures — read the first post.

Don’t forget about the Life of Scratch Kindle promotion (it’s free for the day!) : a Christmas gift to you.

The front hall holds the First Lady trees, with ornaments for each First Lady.

Merry almost Christmas!

Amazon has once again chosen Life from Scratch for promotion.  It’s free — yes, FREE — for download now until the 24th.  Grab it on the off-chance that someone gives you a Kindle for Christmas or read it on the Kindle app from your phone.  If you read it now, you’ll be all ready when the sequel, Taking Seconds, comes out this April.  Just sayin’…

Please help spread word today.  Tweet it, Facebook it, Pin it, email it, blog it, Stumble it, talk about it under the mistletoe instead of kissing.  Free — you can’t do much better than that, right?

Counting down the days to Christmas with a daily morning post containing a photograph of the White House Christmas decorations.  Have no clue why someone Jewish is doing this or how I got all these pictures — read the first post.

The White House is decorated inside and out.

Counting down the days to Christmas with a daily morning post containing a photograph of the White House Christmas decorations.  Have no clue why someone Jewish is doing this or how I got all these pictures — read the first post.

Fruit decorations in the Red Room.

If you are reading this, it would appear that the Mayan predictions of the world ending on December 21, 2012 haven’t come true. (And no, you don’t need to write a comment about what historians believe the Mayans truly meant or how there are still many more hours in the day for the world to end on cue.)  I wrote this paragraph on Thursday thinking, if the world doesn’t end, then I will be on target talking about how the world hasn’t ended.  And if the world does end, no one will be here to read how I got it all wrong.

It’s not the ending (or not ending) of the world that struck me.  It’s the fact that this date is finally here.  That we spoke about it as children on the playground, committing this date to memory.  I remember telling my friends that when the day came, I would be an adult but I wouldn’t go to work that day.  Instead, I would hide in my parent’s house with my family.  In this scenario, I wasn’t married with children of my own.  I just assumed that in the year 2012, my siblings and I would hunker down in my parent’s house so we could all be together when the world ended.

2012 sounded impossibly far away, like an eternity.  Hell, the year 2000 sounded like an eternity back in 1980.  And now we are 12 years into this millennium.  Isn’t that crazy?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Birth Stories” (R. Sativus)
• “Crossing the Line with ‘Why Don’t You Adopt?’” (Whitney & Erick)
• “Thoughtful Thursday: Off the List” (Baby Smiling in Back Seat)
• “It’s Okay” (Here We Go Again)
• “Newtown” (Stirrup Queens) – thank you, Kmina
• “Do Something” (Baby Interrupted)
• “Heartbroken” (Apple Pie and the Universe)
• “Push Me Pull You” (I Can’t Whistle)
• “Still Her” (Mrs. Spit)

Okay, now my choices this week.

As you would expect, the shooting at Sandy Hook was processed on a lot of blogs.  Weathering Storms has a post about wading through the unhelpful Facebook status updates people were snarling at each other after the shooting.  She writes, “I thought that tragedy was supposed to bring out the best in everyone? That we are supposed to come together and comfort each other…instead, people were tearing each other down.”  She posts a snippet of a poem by Rumi.  It’s a beautifully quiet post.

Here We Go Again has one of the most helpful posts I’ve ever read about processing a tragedy, whether it happens on a national or worldwide scale or a personal scale.  I think this was my favourite part: “I actually think that is one of the most wonderful things about our world. Life goes on. No matter what, someone is having the worst day of their life. But someone else is having the best day. And even when the worst is very, very bad- like today- normal life still has to happen around it.”  Go read (and bookmark and spread word) about this post.

Lastly, Still Life with Circles has a gorgeous post about the end of the world and mourning the death of a child, marking what would have been her child’s 4th birthday if she had lived.  I will give you a taste of the post: “I remember what that feels like. The end of the world. The rug is pulled out from under you. Tumbling, nauseated, insomniatic, fearful, like you can suddenly see all the poison, juts, knives, umbilical cord accidents, guns, cars as weapons of mass destruction, televisions untethered to walls.”  You will need to click over and read in order to feel the full power of the piece.

The roundup to the Roundup: The world didn’t end, though I can’t believe that 2012 is finally here.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 14th and December 21st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.