So many things can happen in twelve months… When I look back over the past 365 days I can hardly fathom all the important and life-altering moments that can be contained in a single year.

There are so many changes, some are good and some are bad, and some are a little of both.

December always puts me in a contemplative mood and I like to consider the ways in which the past year has changed me, and hopefully, improved me.

This serious contemplation is best done over mounds of charmingly decorated cookies. Cookies which you made with people you love, who turn out to be very talented icing artists.

The kinds of talented friends that can make pirate gingerbread men.

For me, Christmas is a time to remember how much we love people.

I think as children we love others without knowing exactly why - we simply love them. But as we grow into adults who often think too much, we begin to realize where our love is rooted, and that makes the love even more precious.

Maybe we love them because their smiles make us feel cozy from the very depths of our heart, or maybe it's because they are always around when we need someone to hand us tissues when we can no longer hold back the flood of tears.

Whatever the reason, knowing why we love a person makes them precious to us and the ability to recognize the preciousness of others is practically the most wonderful thing about being human.

“I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round...as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol