My daughter sent me a reel earlier this week with some girl on Instagram saying that she was going to send her brother random boring, senseless updates by text the following day – things no one would care about, really. So my older daughter decided to do the same for her own brother. That’s what happened today. I woke to photos of the random texts and spent a day with the best medicine – – laughter!
She has her next “victim” in sight, and I can’t wait!
Sometimes I like to take a stack of books and search for lines that speak to me to create found poems in random order to see if they make sense – kind of like a scavenger hunt. I used the following books and found 4 ten-syllable lines broken into five syllables with line breaks, in this order:
The Lost Spells by Robert McFarlane and Jackie Morris
Jessica of Chicago is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems to the theme of “This is the Year.” She writes, “January is a time for self-reflection, goal-setting, and aspirational thinking.” You can read her full prompt and poems of others here. She encourages us to write poems about the changes we wish to see in 2025, structuring it this way:
Line 1: This is the year that _______ (your hope or aspiration comes to fruition)
Lines 2-5and beyond: Provide a concrete description of what this would mean
My husband’s work sent a Heavenly Ham to us, and with just the two of us and a ham heavier than a lab puppy, I wasn’t quite sure how to make it work before it spoiled. The life of the poor pig weighed heavily enough on my conscience that I set out to be a good steward of all the readying he did before giving his life for our sustenance. I dug up a bag of black eyed peas and carved the meat from the bone, mixing protein and fiber together. It’s in the crock pot today, and it will be ENOUGH to get us through winter Sunday dinners with cornbread.
Few things give me greater pleasure than walking into the woods to gather Christmas greenery to create our own holiday decorations. On Christmas Eve, my husband and I took a bag and some pruning shears to snip some of nature’s finest fragrant (and free) gifts. As we light the candles to remember our mothers at Christmas dinner today, we celebrate the simple beauty of family, of friends, and of love that transcends this life.
May you find, in all the merriment of the day, true peace in the real reason for the season – the eternal life we have because of Jesus Christ. And the assurance that we will again be joined with those no longer here around our tables in person. That’s the most precious gift of all.
This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), and in Part 3 starting in Chapter 7, she presents ways to preserve the quiet times by savoring the “hush.” She encourages time to reflect on Christmas and suggests ways to avoid stress during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
I’m particularly excited for the moments of hush this year. My youngest daughter is scheduled to be induced two days after Christmas. She’s pregnant with her first child, a son, who will be named Silas. This gift of a new family member is the most precious gift of all, and while the moments of hush will be few and far between with the constant needs of an infant, the moments of watching a baby sleep will bring deep peace and joy. I plan to be there to celebrate the birth and get to know this new little one.
Indeed, a baby changes everything – especially at Christmas!
The relaxed pace of the week after Christmas affords down time for many, where the world takes a deep pause from work to play and spend time with family. Many businesses in our area are closed from Christmas until New Year’s Day. It’s the perfect time, Kempton writes, to take stock of your house, take mini-breaks, reflect on the past year and plan for the new, to write, and to engage in other creative projects. She encourages us to take a digital detox day by turning off all electronics and not checking email. In fact, she suggests that a day in nature is a great way to hit the reset button for deep thinking that is free of distraction. The chapter is loaded with specific ideas such as hibernating with hot chocolate, flipping mattresses, taking blankets outside to watch the moon and stars, taking mini-trips to local places such as museums or movies, and flying kites on the beach.
The week between Christmas is the best time to reflect on the past year, and to begin thinking about the One Little Word to guide the next year. I’ve loved the power of the word for the past several years, and while I’ve kept the word PRAY for the past two because I can find no better word, I will take a second word for next year because one is calling to me. I’ll keep PRAY as my guiding word, but there will be another that will travel with me through the year as well. I’ll think of them as the focal and diopter lenses on a camera. One big word, and then a refining word. More on this later.
Here are some questions Kempton urges us to consider for reflection between the week of Christmas and New Year’s Day:
When did you experience joy?
What was especially tiring?
What was magical?
What was calm?
Whose presence was challenging? a delight?
Which of your efforts were appreciated, and which felt like a waste of time or energy or money?
What was your single most favorite memory this Christmas?
Which preparations did you enjoy the most?
What would you like to do differently next Christmas?
I already know that putting up the smaller tree was a good move for us, given that I got sick before Christmas and battled an upper respiratory infection that left me fatigued. We were late putting up the tree and figured that since we would have minimal activity in our own home to celebrate, we didn’t want a lot of decorations. Still, we love the lights of a tree for ushering in Christmas Spirit first thing in the morning and in the evenings while we are home, so we pulled down the 7′ pre-lit pencil tree requiring no assembly rather than the 12′ pre-lit tree that goes up in three tiers and requires ladders and three full boxes of ornaments. And we are enjoying it just as much. It may be the new standard for us. Already, I’m not dreading having to “take down Christmas.” It’s simpler this year, and it feels more manageable, allowing me to look forward to less work in the aftermath of the holidays.
And there will be fresh. pumpkin bread, a treat I reserve for Thanksgiving and Christmas and that has been the trademark bread in my home since the mid-1980s when I got the recipe from a cookbook at a bridal shower. Everyone loves this recipe, and I’ll link the recipe here.
Try a loaf for your family. Have a cup of coffee by the tree in the early morning with dogs piled in your lap next to the fireplace, and feel the comfort and warmth of fresh bread before the rest of the household rises. It’s a magical treat.
This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2020), and in Chapter 4 which begins Part 2, she presents ways to consider mindful giving as we celebrate during Christmas.
Kempson says, “Mindful giving comes down to three questions: whether to give, what to give, and how to give.” She goes on to explain that sometimes, the best gift of all is the gift of nothing (there is a child’s picture book title by that name) – that the social contract of giving is often felt most strongly this time of year when the release is there to simply forego gifting. In fact, she provides a statistic that 60 million gifts in 2018 in the UK were unwanted, according to one study, and that another survey found that six out of every ten gifts given to a sample of 2,000 adults were unwanted. Before giving, she offers 3 questions to guide the gifting: is it mindful, is it meaningful, and is it memorable?
Our office holds a gift exchange, and while it’s fun, I’d lay a wager that the numbered gifts fall into the statistics above. For this occasion, I look at the dollar value and either go with wrapped cash or a gift card from a certain huge retailer named after a river in South America. Everyone participating seems to like this option so they can either use it to further their own Christmas shopping or personalize a gift for themselves – from someone who doesn’t know any of them well enough to give a one-size-appeals-to-all gift in this eclectic mix of personalities that would satisfy whomever ends up with it. And it works like a charm.
For the smaller department sector, I set out to answer the age-old question about the best gift for all ages. Everyone loves it. Everyone needs it. Everyone uses it. No one expects it.
And I came up with the answer to this universal question by looking deep into my own soul and asking: what does everyone need that everyone probably already has but could use more of, where size, age, gender, religious affiliation, and political persuasion does not matter? And a clear answer rose to the top.
Chapstick.
I ordered three dozen tubes of Candy Cane Chapstick, along with a supply of clip holder sleeves I’d seen on a travel blog recently. The sleeves have a clip that allows users to attach the tube to a lanyard or a purse loop or backpack strap so that the tubes don’t end up in pockets, either lost through holes, melting with body temperature – or worse, going through the washer and dryer and staining clothes with petroleum spots like I’ve done so many times.
I grabbed a tabletop tree from Hobby Lobby and festooned the tree with the best guard against bitter winter wind that exists – this universal tiny tube of lip bliss. And here is what I discovered: you can’t go wrong with a candy cane Chapstick tree. It’s mindful, meaningful, and (hopefully) memorable – at least for a season.
Even with all of the thanks and appreciative conversations with people asking for the links to be able to re-create the idea at their family gatherings this year, the thrill of giving something you know people both need and want far outweighs the joy of receiving. It’s the greatest feeling in the world!
This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), savoring every sentence. In Chapter 1, the author presents The Five Stories of Christmas that focus on faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage. Today’s focal thoughts center on connection.
Kempton invites us to reflect:
Do you have a specific memory that is related to a Christmas tree, a Christmas feast, or a particular Christmas gathering?
I do, in fact, have a specific memory that is related to a Christmas gathering. We were in my grandparents’ home in Blackshear, Georgia, sitting in the den by the silver tinsel tree with its bright blue ornaments – probably 1970ish. Their friends Kitty and Randolph dropped by with a tin of Christmas cookies, and I remember my grandmother receiving the cookies with warm thanks and a big hug before placing them on the kitchen counter, then returning to the den, where Kitty and Randolph sat down and made their impromptu visit. When they left, they got in their pickup truck to deliver more tins of cookies to family and friends – who, I’m sure, also had no idea they were coming for the surprise visit.
That memory still stays with me as the way of the old days before life got more complicated. It was my first experience with a Currier and Ives tin, and my first experience with a variety of different types of homemade cookies, like the kind with sticky orange marmalade in the center. This was a day when people were home more, did more baking, and made house visits. Life may not have actually been simpler; in fact, it may have been just the opposite. But the values seemed to have been much different, and everyday moments were made more meaningful because less seemed more and enough seemed bountiful.
The older I get, the more I love the idea of these bygone eras. I think it’s why I love reading anything by Gladys Taber so much. Everything she wrote from her Connecticut farm, in my mind, is seen through a Currier and Ives painting. Rustic, rural New England with snow and simple times. It was a day when people really connected. Not through a screen, but in person. Unannounced.
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate the importance of connection, gathering, and feasting at Christmas as an 8. These ratings of each of the stories will be important on Friday, when I draw my Christmas story constellation.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life
Opportunities for writing are waiting for us if we only look for them!
I stopped by the Boston Writing Project’s Drop-in Writing Station at the NCTE Convention, and I was immediately captivated by a large tree with colorful poetry hearts filled with verse proclaiming the convention theme: Heart, Hope, and Humanity. As with most conferences, I was between sessions, hoping to get a seat in the next place while still wanting to sit and write – so I did the next best thing. I’d composed a pile poem in an earlier session led by Sarah Donovan and Stefani Boutelier, so I wrote the poem on the heart and placed it there on the tree. It is a pile of blessings, and this one is read from bottom to top. Here is my pile poem from a Saturday morning NCTE session:
On Thanksgiving Day, I saw another tree just waiting to be filled with words of gratitude. This one was at the Plimoth-Patuxet Museum as we shared a Thanksgiving meal with those visiting the museum to take part in their traditional meal narrated by the chief historian, who shares the history of the holiday. Here is my leaf and the tree.
The leaves filled out throughout the day. I wish I had taken a picture when we stopped by later to read all the leaves that had been added.
I love these kinds of invitations to share responses and writing. It reminds me that everyone is eager to write and to share if the opportunities are presented in fun and engaging ways.
Common Threads 