The Twelve Days of Christmas-Introvert Style: Day Twelve

On the twelfth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me
Twelve guests a-leaving
Batteries re-charging
One well a-filling
No public speaking
Close friends connecting
Plenty time for napping
Six hours a-plotting
One emp-ty house
Four ear plugs
Three note books
Two soothing drinks
And a nice quiet place to just be…

It’s over! You’ve done it! You’ve survived another holiday season—hopefully with your sanity in tact and not feeling like a wrung out dishrag by the end. Your friends and family have feasted, the perfect presents exchanged, and just enough snatched moments here and there that you remember why the holidays are such a magical time, even when you’re not a child.

One of the times I love most is the dead zone between Christmas and New Years. When I was a kid, Dec. 26 was the saddest day of the year. Not so much any more. It seems as if life kind of stops—or at least slows down. It’s a fallow, fertile time when we’ve just capped the year with a celebration and have yet to start the new year with all its resolutions, plans, and intentions. It’s a time for dreaming, reflecting, of reviewing and savoring. If you haven’t had a chance to refill your well or recharge your batteries, grab some time now, while everyone is in this lulled state.

And in order to dream big for next year, today's winner will receive a very cool, very writerly/readerly PaperBlanks 2009 purse size dayplanner! (It's the one on the bottom with all the writing on it.) And the final winner is--Number 20! Jenn Robinson! When you get a chance, Jenn, send me an email and I'll make my final trip to the post office. :-)

Thank you all so much for participating in the Introverted Writer's Twelve Days of Christmas! It's been so much fun. And thank you all for being a part of the Shrinking Violet community. We look forward to an inspiring, well-filling, battery-charging, 2009! (With maybe a teensy dash of public speaking thrown in.)

See you all next year!

Robin and Mary