Third day of Christmas

I can never read this passage from a letter written by Fra Giovanni on Christmas in 1513 too many times.

I salute you. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, that while I cannot give, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No place lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! And so at this Christmastime, I greet you, with the prayer, that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

I purchased the glass ornament at Wishbasket in Newburyport and filled it with a small strip of card stock with Take joy! written on it which was tied to a yew sprig with gold thread, a red glass bead, small gold seed beads, and more gold thread. I chose yew as it stays green and keeps its needles the longest. It was a bit tricky to get it all inside and arranged. No ship in a bottle building in my future.