2008 has been an amazing year. A year of many changes, and one that has ended on a very hopeful note. We have had so much go on in our lives this year, I have yet to figure out a pithy end-of-year letter.

We are celebrating tonight with a newly cleaned fridge and a newly-cleaned living/dining room – an almost ritualized cleansing of the area as we begin anew. We have a pretty blue sign up for the new year, and a new calendar ready to take charge.

We have a big buffet of food – fizzy juices, edamame, baby carrots, a mini-antipasto, multi-colored tortilla chips, regular hummus, kalamata olive hummus, guacamole, salsa, and some tofu for the hummus-disdainer. I wish I had remembered black eyed peas, but we’ll put chick peas in tomorrow’s big salad as a place-holder.

We have a bunch of board & card games to play – from Monopoly to Scrabble, UNO to Frogjuice, and everything in between – Jenga will definitely make a big bang!

For “hard stuff”, we are talking about our wishes for the New Year, reflecting on our accomplishments from 2008, praying about our challenges in 2008, and discussing our resolutions and commitments for 2009. I do think that resolutions and commitments are different – we may resolve to make changes in our behaviors, but we can also commit to doing something. Both actions and our hopes are important, and so we are writing down our wishes, our commitments, and our resolutions for 2009. We’ll also be reading some scriptures together, as what better way to bring in a New Year together than with some timeless words?

Pictures will come later. For now, Happy New Year from the Gaggle!