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This year's Times Square ball, with energy-saving LED lightbulbs. Times do change, vive la change. I hope your celebration is glorious. We'll be perched over the bay watching the Belfast Drum and Rabble bonfire, ringing in the new.

Urban Dharma

for Bill Mohr

A poor child from the projects
writes a letter asking for a towel
so she doesn’t have to use her brothers’
already wet and cold.
Her mother cringes in shame
What she brings home is never enough.

I saw a shopkeeper beat a bum senseless
for stealing a bunch of bananas.
What does he care that I’ll never go in there again?
He is angry. He can’t make it alone.
What he brings home is never enough.

The homeless, despairing in the streets
and the homesick, despairing in the condos
the sales in the malls depleting
credit card opulence and poverty of spirit
there is no way out until it’s over.
What they bring home is never enough.

The urban hunger aches
for that scrap of tinsel or some sparkle
to illuminate the dread
of getting up in the morning; they are
gorged and bloated on eggnog and hams
full of seasonal adulterants
poison for profit, remedies for sale
antacids, tranquilizers, fat substitutes
substitutes for comfort, ease and good sense:
What they bring home is never enough.

The broken toys of mornings after
chase us through the season
through decades, they ridicule the
feast and famine of heart. The broken hearth
of season’s greetings mock us;
we comply numbly, feigning gaiety
waiting on the food lines of the missions
What we bring home is never enough.

Ellen Sander, 1997

"Ten thousand (people) a day go into the Social Security system because of the baby boomers," [Republican presidential hopeful Mike ]Huckabee said [campaigning in South Carolina].

"And here's the best part: Wait until all the aging hippies find out they get free drugs."

Scratch that guy. Not a lot of diplomatic talent there, wot?

I shoveled off the front porch so my footsteps wouldn't ice, moved the car to the bottom of the driveway so the snowplow could come up to the house, listened to the radio for 5 minutes while the car warmed up (the lazy way to clear the windows) took a little walk in the snow and by the time I got back to the front porch almost a 1/2 inch of snow had accumulated on the porch. A lovely day to be housebound, to sit inside and watch the snowfall fleece past the windows. The fire is burning and all errands are complete so there's no reason to budge from the snug comfort of home.

I'm well prepared. Candles and flashlight at the ready, lots of yummy food stocked in, extra computer batteries charged so that if the power goes out, as it surely will somewhere on the grid, I can at least eat and futz with my computer. The Internet connection may well go down, but I can still write, clean up my disk, work and watch DVDs. These lithium batteries are amazing, I get as much as 6 hours of computing out of each one.

It's a perfect day, a gift of a day, to contemplate conscious holiday gifting and carding. In recent years, I've eschewed sending paper cards, and don't want to receive them. I've sent e-cards instead and am delighted to get them. But I just got one of those that goes e-carding one better. You can actually contribute to improving life on earth by e-carding using Care2. Care2 seems like an amazing network.

Care2 saves one square foot of rainforest every time you send a free eCard.

Care2 connects you with non-profits and elected officials. We work with more than 250 non-profit organizations to inform you of urgent environmental issues and inspire you to take action and make your voice heard by your elected officials. We then make it easy for you to sign petitions and public comments, which we help deliver directly to key decision-makers. We have green living tips, environmental discussion boards, the world's largest green directory service and much more.

Yes, it really does make a difference. For instance, Care2 members submitted more than 100,000 comments to U.S. senators to help win a key vote to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. We believe your support will help us demonstrate that environmental responsibility and healthy living is good business!

Check it out.

For conscious gifting, try World Wildlife Fund (aka WWF), where you can adopt a Polar Bear or other endangered species and gift a stuffed baby animal version of the species your money protects.

Also visit Sustainable Harvest International where among lots of affordable choices you can plant 100 trees for $25 or grow an acre of chocolate for $40.

And speaking of Chocolate, I went to, believe it or not, a chocolate party at my favorite local art gallery last night. There was music, cheese, hummus, wine, pita and crackers, hot and cold cider and abundant free samples from Dean's Sweets' Dean Bingham, a Maine architect turned chocolatier. If you love chocolate, this is about as good as it gets. I guarantee you'll love it and if not, I'll come over to your place and eat the rest of it. Support homegrown business and your chocolate jones by ordering some of his truffles, which come in some amazing flavors and are not cloying at all, the way most truffles are.

Oh, that was good. But then I went to my favorite Belfast bar, a chic and homey small establishment perched above the harbor like a crow's nest, and sampled some of their newly decanted blueberry vodka which had been brewing in a huge canister on the end of the bar for months. Pure pleasure. You'd think it'd be too sweet, but Maine blueberries are smaller and less sweet than the more common market blueberries and there was just a hint of fruity glisten in the crisp indigo repast served in a chilled aperitif glass.

Here's to you!

All the best for a lovely season of contentment, consumption and joy.

EJS