It was a not-so-silent night...

Hi friends! How are you this beautiful Sunday? Here in Sydney it’s finally hot, hot, hot — and I’m having a thousand coffees by myself as the family sleeps in after our little Christmas party last night.

Best part? The live music! A pianist, a cellist, and a violinist all crammed in the music room singing Christmas carols. It was so much fun and reminded me of my Canadian home.

Then we stayed up until 2:30am talking with our young adult sons, just the four of us by the tree amidst the mess of plates and food and presents from friends. It felt like magic—one of those family Christmas memories.

Today I’m thinking about imperfection.

When we open our homes and hearts to people, we make beautiful things (not perfect things). Yes, there could have been cleaner baseboards, and it was so hot. I had about three seconds to get dressed for my own party because I was rushing to get the food ready. My original pianist cancelled last minute and my cellist son and his talented friends stepped in.

But friends showed up to bring the cheer.

Honestly, there are presents here today that I never even saw last night…little hostess gifts under the tree and sprinkled around the house. People sang and chatted and met new people and laughed.

In my heart, here’s what I’m thinking: people are so surprisingly lovely.

This Christmas, let people love you.

Sit for a minute and soak in your good fortune, like I did last night.

Nobody wanted us perfect, or our home to be any different, or the food better or the fun more fun. People just want to be welcomed in.

Nobody wants your worry—they want your love.

Wish you were here, and I’m sending you a heart full of peace. Breathe in, enjoy, make some magic this holiday season with whatever you’ve got in your own two hands.

Catherine xx

PS.

• Ladies, these are great holiday party shoes! Flat, cute, comfy, a little surprising. Order your regular size and sparkle a little!

• And thank you for gifting my books to women who will love them. Authors can only keep writing when readers buy books, and I appreciate you. You are the friends I treasure.

The thing we lost recently...

So here’s a weird true story for you with a metaphor for life…

We moved into our family home 14 years ago, and the owners had a double door between two bedrooms that locked with a special key. Our two young sons wanted their own rooms, but often would play together with those double doors open between their rooms.

That key was the only way to keep the doors closed, and with two young kids, we guarded it with our lives.

What if we lost the key?

What if the boys were playing with it, locking each other in and out and they lost the special key?

Fast forward 14 years to yesterday, when we were replacing the carpet on that side of the house. We needed to open the doors between the boys’ rooms, which had been locked since they became teens.

But we couldn’t find the key.

It wasn’t in the special key spot we’d used for years (a hidden mug on a shelf). Frantic texts to the boys yielded a no from both of them. My husband tried a zillion different allen keys, with no luck.

The worst had happened. After worrying we’d lose the key for 14 years, we finally lost the KEY. We’d have to remove the doors from the hinges to get the carpet installed, and then…

My husband googled ‘round key with ridges double doors’ and found that Bunnings carries THOUSANDS of them.

For $3.

In fact, we must have walked by walls of those keys every Saturday for 14 years when we were at the hardware store.

Yep, it’s a metaphor for life.

Most of the things we worry about never happen. All that time is lost.

And even if we do actually lose the key, sometimes it is laughably easy to just FIGURE IT OUT.

If you’re worrying about something today, is there a chance that maybe it isn’t such a big worry after all? Maybe it’ll be easy. Maybe the solution will pop up before you have to rip doors off their hinges.

Maybe this time, it will be a simple fix with no downside.

I hope so! You deserve every good thing, especially this year when life has been hard.

Happy Friday.

Love Catherine x

PS.

If you’re in Sydney and you need to replace carpets, you may want to get a quote from the guys who helped me this week. The price was almost 40% less than the exact same carpet installed from a provider in my upper north shore suburb. What?! Email me for info — happy to help you!

And because everyone loves a good before & after…(my older son, the one whose day job is law school and hobby is becoming a BBQ pit master, spilled a tray of meat and juice on this carpet six months ago. That’s why it looks SO BAD.)

Before…

After!

It’s hard to take a photo of carpet that shows the colour properly. It’s actually lighter than it looks here…but so much better!