It's only because we picked the long-loved Mexican option near home versus the one nearby for dinner. And had we not taken the roundabout way to our neck of the woods, we never would have stumbled upon a picture perfect tree lot for our traditional post-Thanksgiving hunt. "Pull over! Let's check it out."

The sun was setting in all its glory, the kids were zig zagging through all the greenery, and I was loving the twinkling white lights shining on all of the options for our perfect pick. It felt like Christmas, the Hallmark movie kind that I can't help but watch this time of year.

The boy scouts on hand let us know that we could keep the trimmed piece off the tree if we wanted. Sensing an arts and crafts option for sentimentality, I was all over the notion.

With fingers sticky from sap, I looked at the rings circled on the bit of trunk and thought about what a dear friend mentioned earlier this month--that what if we all were trees, with the chance to offer other souls a glimpse at our rings, our cycles and circles that defined us?

It wouldn't be a collection of perfection. Some years would swing wide with joy, some jagged with grief, some zig-zagging and wandering, others on course taking aim.

What I like about the rings is the building upon, the circling of experiences around one's spirit. The venturing out or hugging the turns, but still swinging back to complete the cycle, to add another year to the life that's evolving, becoming.

Advent is my favorite season.

I love the anticipation that comes with eager young ones getting wrapped up in the magic that is Christmas. I reflect on the year's events while looking to another turn of a calendar year. And I try to savor the now, filled with promise and opportunity for all of us to grow into and enjoy what's to be.

Our joys, our hurts, our milestones, our dawnings--all collected in a compact glimpse, our many seasons of being.

"a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living."
—Virginia Woolf