Category: Reflection

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A Calm Christmas: Comfort and Joy in Contemplation of Spirit

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This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2020), and in Chapter 3, she presents ways to seek comfort and joy in winter by seeking our natural rhythms and learning from nature.

To contemplate ways to simplify and nourish our spirits, Kempson encourages us to go gently into winter mornings by tiptoeing to the kitchen, light candles, meditate, or write as self-care measures. She asks these questions:

How could you simplify your home, schedule, digital life? How can you nourish your mind, body, spirit, and loved ones, and what rituals will see you through winter?

So much can be simpler. I once heard that if you feel stressed and need to hit the reset button, spend a half hour in nature. But those who are really busy should spend an hour. Sometimes we don’t have control over simplifying our work schedules or the digital life that work requires, but when home is the haven that allows the respite at day’s end, there is much to be loved. I walk my dogs along a path my husband keeps cut on the farm…and would you believe I go in my flannel pajamas and boots, praying all the while that a delivery truck doesn’t come calling while I’m out in my loungewear? We drink cinnamon orange tea in the evenings in winter, and while we don’t have a real log fireplace, we keep the gas logs going if it’s anywhere below 60 degrees outside. These are the ways we nourish ourselves, and the simple rituals are what will take us through winter. Sometimes, doing as little as possible on weekends is the order of the day, letting the book stacks speak their stories to us as we read the day away.

One of my favorite thoughts in this chapter is “the sounds of winter are cracking in poetry, wind in the trees, rain on the roof, a spitting fire, the thump of a log falling away from the flames, rustling paper, mulled wine poured steaming into a glass, the rhythm of the weather forecast calmly announcing that the storms will rage on.”

That’s the epitome of hygge at its finest – in its best season to be fully experienced as a way to embrace the season of winter.

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A Calm Christmas: Mission Christmas Constellations!

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), savoring every chapter like it’s a rich dessert, drizzled with all the best chocolate, caramel, and whipped cream. In Chapter 2, Kempton presents ways to reflect on and consider various aspects of Christmas and what they truly mean to us. We take the scores of importance from Chapter 1 to create Christmas constellations and consider ways to reduce tension and enhance the holiday season, especially when comparing our rankings with those of a spouse.

I completed my Christmas Constellation by graphing, in rankings of importance on scales of 1-10, the areas of faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage as they relate to what Christmas means to me. I examined my completed graph and imagined what I might call my constellation in the clear, cold night so brightly shining. The reclined reader. The image is vividly there as I look at the outline of the recliner with my head propped back, my feet up on the footrest of the chair, flanked by three warm schnoodles and a book in my hands.

Truth. That’s me in the night sky in my own personal twinkling constellation. Exactly as I would want to be, right there on a red line stretching out between the star dots.

Imagine my surprise when I went back through Chapter 1 and asked my husband to share his personal 1-10 rankings of these same parts of Christmas in the quest to create an overlay. I hadn’t revealed my rankings to him when I asked him to share his. I jotted them down, then flipped the chart to rank his in green.

Here are our overlaid results:

Just as Kempton intended, I’m sure, this led to some deep conversation about our Christmas ideals and values. Out of 50 possible perfectly matched points, we were 2 1/2 points divergent: a half point off on heritage, one point off on faith, and one point off on connection. Magic and abundance were matched exactly, at 6 and 5 respectively.

We talked about the things we noticed and wondered, most notably that we were curious if the loss of our mothers impacted our seemingly low rankings on heritage. Perhaps some of the traditions felt “less” now that they were no longer here – or too painful to continue. We also talked about what made sense as we worked our way through the discussion points. It makes sense that we both ranked faith the highest, since church has played a tremendous role throughout our lives. It makes sense that abundance, to us, means that we have just enough – without living lives of excess. It makes sense that we value connection with others since we have family and friends with whom we enjoy spending time at holidays. It makes sense that the magic of Christmas still hangs in the air as wonder and belief that unseen guests and unexplained events can be seen and felt more strongly at Christmas than any other time.

Three hours later, we were still sharing Christmas memories and reasons we believe things are the way they are now in each of these areas. Kempton noted that these rankings can change each year -and we both agreed that five or ten years ago, our rankings would have been different in most categories. I think what we both enjoyed more than anything was the evening of deep conversation with dogs piled in our laps, instrumental Christmas music playing softly in the background as we shared favorite times and reflections.

The upside is that our values are similar enough that we aren’t likely to disagree or argue about the way things should be done. The downside is that where rankings seem they may be perceived as weak, there isn’t a higher ranking in the other to pull either one of us up on the scale where some areas might generate more “Christmas spirit” if they were higher.

That fine line between Christmas spirit and stress, though, is a reflection for a later chapter.

The shared perspective is that right now, we’re exactly where we want to be.

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A Calm Christmas: Heritage

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This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), and in Chapter 1, Kempton presents The Five Stories of Christmas that focus on faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage. Today’s focal thoughts center on heritage.

Kempton invites readers to reflect on these aspects of heritage:

What is your view of traditions related to midwinter, such as decorating your home with evergreens and celebrating the winter solstice? What sort of weather do you associate with Christmas, and what impact does it have on how you expect to feel and what you expect to do this time of year? What particular traditions have been handed down through your family and become part of your personal Christmas story, and how do you feel about them? Do you plan to maintain them?

We’ve never specifically celebrated Winter Solstice, but we have traditionally celebrated winter with a Christmas tree in our home, whether real or artificial, along with a wreath on the door as well. Having grown up on an island, I always wanted snow but never had a true “White Christmas” until 1989, when the snow set in the evening before Christmas Eve and amounted to about 6 inches in the coastal area of South Carolina where we lived at the time. Weather never had an impact on our holiday season, since most of the time it was warm and sunny. In fact, there were Christmases that we could have sunbathed on the beach.

Traditions that have been handed down include gift giving and celebrating Christmas morning around the tree with a breakfast casserole in the oven, warm cinnamon rolls, and coffee and juice. There were many years that my mother hosted a formal Christmas dinner at high noon with extended family around the table, and while I loved it, a formal meal on Christmas Day is not a tradition that I would be successful in continuing, as families are growing and beginning their own traditions. At this point, my husband and I are happy to travel or to be home – whichever works out best for those family members with young children. Also, we often spread the celebration times around so that we are not locked into the one day of Christmas being our dedicated day to gather.

In writing our Christmas narratives, Kempton reminds us that “much of the stress of Christmas comes from either not giving ourselves permission to evolve our inherited narrative, or from the pressure to evolve it into something that is out of alignment with what, deep down, we believe about Christmas….What we need is a way to marry what matters to us with what matters to those we love, and then let go of the rest.”

I couldn’t agree more. Having traditions and memories creates rootedness and belonging, but it’s a double-edged sword in creating a rigidness that prevents us from embracing new ways of doing things and being flexible in our thinking. Things don’t always have to be done the way they’ve always been done. It’s my turn to celebrate with my children – and their children – in the way that they choose to honor, celebrate, and keep Christmas!

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate heritage as it relates to family traditions as a 4 or 5 in importance. These ratings will become part of a Christmas constellation in tomorrow’s post.

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A Calm Christmas: Abundance

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), and in Chapter 1, Kempton presents The Five Stories of Christmas that focus on faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage. Today, my thoughts center on abundance.

Kempson inspires readers to reflect on this:

What elements of the more commercial side of Christmas do you recall from your childhood? Which aspects did you find exciting (such as a television ad, the idea of stockings bursting with gifts, writing a letter to Santa, etc?) How do you feel about Christmas shopping?

The first element of the commercial side of Christmas that I remember from childhood is the Sears Christmas Catalog Wish Book. I spent hours turning the pages of the toy section of the catalog as if those were the only toys in the world, all waiting on shelves at the North Pole to be delivered by a magical reindeer-pulled sleigh.

That wish book should not have been any different for me, really. My grandmother worked in downtown Waycross, Georgia in the Sears Catalog Department, so my entire childhood was filled with items from Sears – from housewares to clothing and everything in between. I had Winnie the Pooh on every shirt I owned, along with the matching shorts and pants, and I’m pretty sure that Sears short sets were the precursor to Garanimals. Whatever we may have needed, we mostly got it from Sears with the secret inherited family discount that all came down through Grandma Eunice.

Those catalogs weren’t just toy finders, either. They were the small-town Georgia equivalent of the New York City phonebooks used as booster seats for kids at Christmas dinner. It was the one time of the year we actually ate at the formal dining room table, and the catalog boost did the trick.

Shopping was an altogether different matter. My mother loved shopping at Lenox Square in Rich’s in Atlanta, Georgia the day afterThanksgiving. We spent all day there with my aunt, and it started at 6:00 a.m. to get the bargains, starting in Rich’s – before it became Macy’s. In fact, the men would drop off the ladies and the children and go back home to watch football and relax, but they would make a swoop back to the basement door of Rich’s by the candy counter so that the ladies could pack all the treasures in the car without having to lug so many bags. By the time the men returned, the women had fulfilled their part of the day with us cousins. We’d been through the Secret Santa gift shop with our own personal elf to help us shop with the money and list our mothers had made, and we’d also seen the pink pig. We got to go home and play board games when the men came back. It was the dads’ turn to be on kid duty. The women? They kept shopping – without kids in tow.

I’m pretty sure that’s where I developed my lingering distaste for shopping. I don’t like traffic, I abhor frenzied crowds, and I don’t like the “thrill” of the hunt. As an adult, I never have been one to have much more than what I need (except in food and shoes), so the excess of clearance and sale items in the name of saving money never made much sense to me about things we hadn’t needed in the first place. Were we really saving money if the need wasn’t there?

These experiences had a place, though, in shaping the shopper I am today. These days, I ask family members for the digital equivalent of the Sears Christmas Catalog Wish Book in the form of links. My daughter in law is amazing about it, too. She has the lists ready, one per grandchild, and it allows me to shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales as we purchase gifts for our grandchildren. We use this principle: Something you want, Something you need, Something to Wear, and Something to read. That’s how we buy for each grandchild (number 7 will be here 2 days after Christmas, if not before).

It’s what we call simple abundance: having the things we need, but leaving plenty enough wishing room.

On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate celebration of abundance by way of Christmas shopping and gifting as a 5 in importance. The ratings of each section will be used to create my Christmas constellation on Friday.

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A Calm Christmas: Connection

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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.

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A Calm Christmas: Magic

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019). In Chapter 1, she presents The Five Stories of Christmas that focus on faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage. Today, I’m remembering the magic of Christmas I felt as a child.

Kempton asks us to reflect: Where did your ideas about Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus come from? Did you enjoy other magical stories as a child?

There is no question about where my idea of Santa was rooted. I still have my favorite version of The Night Before Christmas, illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa. Though it is in poor condition from being loved on so much, it was the one my mother read to me over and over and over again, and the one that still comes to mind on every mention of Clement C. Moore’s Letter to Saint Nicholas. The sugarplum illustration is my favorite one in the entire book. The art of the bygone era appeals to me.

Of course, there was other magic. Rudolph’s red nose and a team of flying reindeer were captivating images filled with magic. Frosty’s magical topcoat that brought him to life – and then couldn’t keep him cold enough to survive – still brings winter wonderland feelings even through the tears of a melted snowman.

Magic Acrostic

Merry Christmas

And Happy New Year

Going on 59 times now ~ and

I still love the magic of

Childhood at Christmas

On a scale of 1-10, rating how much magic and wonder are important to me at Christmas, I’d rate them a 6.

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The Real Age Test

The pink Christmas tree in one class I visited this week

I had the privilege of visiting three second grade classes this week as teachers in our system complete their Science of Reading modules required by the State of Georgia under its new legislation.

In the first class, one student asked, “Have you ever been in a classroom?”

That should have been my first sign.

I replied that I had, and it all started once upon a long, long time ago and lasted for many years.

She looked at me suspiciously, then asked with a hint of sass, “So you can handle us?”

Oh, the joys of second grade. They tell it like it is, and nothing gets left unsaid.

Forget any “Real Age Test” your insurance company has ever asked of you. There’s a real-er one, and here’s all you have to do: step into a primary school classroom for three hours. Three hours is all it takes to get yourself into real trouble, as any of the guests aboard the SS Minnow would remind us. Ironically, being shipwrecked on a desert island seemed it would be paradise by the time I slugged back out to the parking lot each morning.

How did I ever do this when I started teaching in the late 1990s with a full class of second graders, three children and a husband and so much laundry at home, when one played soccer on a travel team and we traveled most weekends as a family and stayed in hotels AND I didn’t have Clicklist at the grocery store where I could click my order in and pull up and wait for them to come running out with the cart and load me up?

How?

HOW??!!

This, my friends, is the Real Age Test. I passed with flying colors as someone who is really aged.

I slumped back into the driver’s seat, one building away from my office and allowed myself five minutes’ peace, hoping no one walked by and saw me in such a state. I wrapped my arms around the steering wheel and let my head rest on my forearms. I prayed. I prayed I hadn’t pulled a muscle bending over to sit down in the tiny chairs or, more likely, hefting myself up out of them. I prayed there were still 19 heads to be counted in the room I’d just left and that there were not a few running loose in the building somewhere and that I wouldn’t get a phone call shortly, asking about any missing children.

The Real Age Test. Like cheese, I’ve discovered my moldy edges and the holes I didn’t used to have. My denial has come to an end, and I have accepted that I am truly aged.

I feel it in my bones.

But I did take away a great compliment: when I was doing a read-aloud, they were mesmerized. They said, “You do it so good.” Apparently, I sparkle as a picture book reader. And that makes it all worth it.

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Spiritual Journey – December 2024


Scrolling in search of the next book to read on an upcoming flight, my right thumb becoming numb, I came to a screeching halt on Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.  

This, I nodded approvingly to myself, thinking of all the exhausting change that 2024 has brought.  This may be just the medicine my soul needs right now.

Many of the changes life has brought throughout the year are positive ones, but even good change requires a period of adjustment.  The not-so-good changes, even more so.  

I clicked the Kindle sample download and examined the Table of Contents, organized in chapters by the seven cold months of the year starting in October and ending in Late March.  I read the reviews on Goodreads and delved into the sample text, asking at each decision point whether this would be the best investment of my time and cognitive energy – since both are forever fleeting.

After finishing the sample, I knew this was the book for me.  I downloaded the full book.

I realize I’ve struck book gold when I find a book that has me hanging on each sentence, savoring its power and meaning as I apply it to my life and feel the peace it brings.  Each thought, it seems, fits like a glove when I’ve found the right book for the right time.  It’s like a medicinal salve, like Candy Cane chapstick on parched lips whipped sick by the wind.  

All at once, my breathing deepens and my heart slows from its racing pace.  I feel my tongue stop pressing against the roof of my mouth in its usual stress-pressure position.  My shoulders drop and my neck muscles loosen.  I read May’s soothing words as I consider the approaching winter break: 

“Winter is when I reorganize my bookshelves and read all the books I acquired in the previous year and failed to actually read. It is also the time when I reread beloved novels, for the pleasure of reacquainting myself with old friends….In winter, I want concepts to chew over in a pool of lamplight—slow, spiritual reading, a reinforcement of the soul. Winter is a time for libraries, the muffled quiet of book stacks and the scent of old pages and dust. In winter, I can spend hours in silent pursuit of a half-understood concept or a detail of history. There is nowhere else to be, after all.”

And in this, I can rest with full hope and anticipation that the gas logs and my heated throw will bring needed warmth.  My dogs will bring peace and deep comfort as they vie for snoozing position next to me, and my books will bring the golden silence and space my heart needs as I sip a cup of honeyed hot tea and reread: …. there is nowhere else to be, after all.  

My next book will be Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton. What will you be reading, dear friend, in the sweet, snug nook of home, in the nestled bliss of nowhere else to be?

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Please link your blog posts in the comments below, and thank you for reading today!

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The Peace of Home

On Saturday, we picked up the dogs from the kennel. They’d been there for over a week, and we don’t think they sleep very well there with all the barking and the stress of the other dogs who are strangers to them. We believe this because every time we pick them up, they sleep the rest of the day and straight through the night once we bring them back to the comfort of their home.

It’s a lot like how we feel when we come home from a trip. We can let down and truly relax. All our stuff is back where it goes, and we are no longer living out of a carry-on suitcase.

Our dogs are spoiled, and used to a quiet space where they lounge in our bed all day and eat kibble soaked in bone broth. They pile up in our laps or on the back of our chairs, stretching their front legs around one side of our neck and their back legs around the other, functioning essentially as a living fur scarf and warming us from the inside out.

One of them, Ollie, has no upbringing whatsoever – – he will walk right across the end table to get from one of us to the other as we sit in our family room chairs. He is often seeking his place, because he arrived in our family as a “guest dog” after my grandson visited and wanted to know which of our two dogs was going to sleep with him in his bed. Fitz is invisibly tethered to me, and Boo Radley does not stray far from my husband. Ollie, a young stray schnoodle offered to us by the rescue when two other families walked away, joined our family after being found as a young stray on the streets of Gainesville, Georgia. He is the perfect “guest dog,” simply wandering between us, happiest when someone is throwing his ball to him.

The quiet comfort and peace of home is the best part of the Johnson Funny Farm, but it would not be this blissful without the dogs here with us. They add such character, such love, such personality, such humor – and such predictability – to our lives. They know their routine.

When I rise, earlier most days than my husband, they wait in bed for me to use the restroom and wash my hands. Once I come out, they are on their way down the bed steps, heading to the door for their turn.

Out we go for the first quick outing, into the dark of the morning no matter what time of year it is, and they handle their business quickly before coming back inside – back to bed on work days, to wait for me to finish my shower. Once I head to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and begin writing, though, two will saunter in and reposition themselves – Boo and Ollie – while Fitz finds his toy turtle and burrows under the bed covers until time for the second outing of the morning.

I think what I love best is the weekends, where they know we are going nowhere and that the day will be spent at home with them, belonging to each other in the way that dogs and their people do when they’ve bonded.

There is no other peace felt as deeply, at least for me, as the complete and total togetherness of being home with our boys.

Oh, to sleep this spontaneously!