Each year at this time of holidays our minds turn to family and traditions, to faith and to friends, food, and gifts. Newspapers are laden with ads and coupons. Our inboxes are also. Store parking lots are filled with cars, everyone is hurrying somewhere. Schools, too, prepare for the holidays. There is a frenzy about this time of year.

Since we began writing this blog, we have written about the children for whom this time is a sad time, a time where there is no abundance, a time when family may be absent, a feeling of being different and apart, of not belonging, of being conspicuous because of what is missing or invisible because no one is noticing. These children can be 5 or 15.  The feelings are the same regardless of age but perhaps anger has infiltrated the adolescent's other feelings. Everyone around them rushing about, buying, giving, and receiving 'things', with joyous music in stores and aisles filled with decorations and gift ideas. They are in another reality, one of limited resources and, sometimes, one of limited love. Two realities become clear; ours and theirs. 

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