Christmas Eve

My Uncle, who unfortunately can't join us this Christmas, called tonight, and in the course of our conversation, asked me what I had done today.
I replied, quite truthfully, that I had slept in, and then spent the rest of the day making meat pies (tourtière for the Québécois/es out there).
I ate the pies.  Well, part of one of them, anyway.
All told, this is not a particularly bad way to spend a day. I, at least, enjoyed it.
Today is the first time I have ever made tourtière, despite repeated threats to do so in the past.  In addition, I attempted to recreate a meat pie of my youth, made by a friend of the family who has since passed away.  I grew up on Joan's meat pies, and while I love the ones we now buy from my Aunt, I have never forgotten the moist shredded meat and potatoes that filled the pies of my younger days.
Today, I set out to make Joan's meat pie, and, by all accounts, succeeded.  It was like tasting the long passed days of Christmas as a child.  It was a wonderful moment indeed.
In a conversation with my Grandmother yesterday, she described the act of baking bread as magic.  I too have often considered cooking to be a magical act, and I was joyed to hear the matriarch of a family of 13, presumably having cooked more than any one person should every want to cook, describe it so.  To have recaptured a part of my past, in the form of a long lost food, makes the act even more powerful.  I made the dough for the pie crusts from scratch, another first for me.  There is something about flour and it's attendant ingredients that highlight the strange processes that occur in cooking (the magic, for lack of better terms).  It changes so dramatically, depending on what is added (butter, water) or applied (pressure, heat).  To handle dough, to work it, to transform it, especially when making bread, that quintessential foodstuff, staple of the West, is a profound experience.
In addition to my culinary exploits, I also had the pleasure of attending the Christmas Eve service at the local Church.  It was a lovely event, and one of the readings struck me.  In a responsive prayer, the lay reader exhorted us to "approach Christmas with the joy of a child".
Having rediscovered the taste of the meat pies of my childhood, and having revealed in the magic of cooking those pies, I feel like I have, in fact, approached this Christmas Eve with the joy of a child.
And that is a beautiful thing.
Merry Christmas, Gentle Reader.  The Best wishes for you and yours this holiday season.