Tag: christmas

Posted on

My Christmas Shopping System: Lessons Learned from My Grandfather

For the first few years of being grandparents, we overdid it a little with Christmas. Let me rephrase that the way my husband would say it happened: for the first few years of being a grandparent, I (me, singular) became Santa with a full sleigh at Christmas. My heart grew too many sizes to contain all the joy, and it flooded the living room in presents for our grandson.

My second, forever, current, and final (in that order, and all the same) husband is still taken aback at times with the flurry of people and number of gifts under the tree at Christmas. He grew up the eldest of three siblings, and the age span took him out into the working world and out of the home while they were still growing up. He was married for a short time, and he and his first wife have one son. If he remembers ripping wrapping paper and other Christmas chaos, those sensory elements of sounds, pitches, and squeals of laughter have evaded him up until he is reminded once again of the reality of noise when he is in the midst of multiple children.

I was married for the first time on this very day forty years ago when it fell on Thanksgiving Day, at 11:00 a.m., before anyone sat down for a turkey dinner as we slipped out on our honeymoon. The best thing to ever come of that marriage that lasted 19 years – other than the lessons learned and my former mother-in-law’s amazing recipe for cranberry orange relish – are three children, their mates, and their seven children, along with the hope of generations to come. The second best thing was that I learned to play a mean hand of euchre, a popular card game played widely up in the northern part of New York State.

By the time my second, forever, current, and final husband and I married, our blended family of four children were practically grown, except for two still finishing high school. They wanted mostly clothes, electronics, and cash for Christmas, and they knew by this time how to sleep late on Christmas morning. Our lives were mostly quiet until grandchildren came along, and suddenly the wonder and surprise of young children returned. And so did all the festivity of Christmas!

When the second grandchild came along, I had to cut back on the Christmas shopping. When the third came, even more. By the time the fourth was born, we needed a system and some ground rules to try to avoid breaking the bank. With the fifth, we tried the first system that worked, but by the sixth it had already changed. With the seventh grandchild’s arrival and plans to retire someday, we think the current system will work but have an alternate plan for retirement when it happens.

So many of my friends ask how we do it, even pre-retirement, with seven grandchildren. And through trial and error over these past 15 years, I’ll spare the journey and share what works for us. It all began when my paternal grandparents used to give each of their grandchildren cash on Thanksgiving Day. My grandfather, who had lived through the Great Depression, served as a pastor, and made his fortune in railroad stock but who had always lived as if he’d had nothing, had kept cash envelopes in his shirt pocket, and as the opportunity presented itself, he’d spent time with each of us to tell us how proud he was of us and to give us Christmas money. As a teenager, it meant the gift went further with the sales – we could pick exactly what we’d wanted from them and could get something better, marked down (the year of the Sony Walkman comes to mind). But as a young parent, that Christmas money was a total game changer. For so many years, that check meant my own children had a visit from Santa. I learned from my paternal grandparents that giving money is not impersonal at Christmas, as many folks may believe. I learned that in the ultimate spirit of giving, sometimes the gift of greenery makes the difference in the way others are able to focus on giving and not merely receiving.

That’s why our adult children get greenery at Christmas, before Black Friday. Cash. I’d been too proud to tell my grandfather all those years ago that it made the difference in my own children’s Christmas, but fast forward to this past week: one of our four said to me what I wish I’d said to my own grandfather – – this makes all the difference, and now Santa can get busy. Because adulting is real, and parenting somehow makes it real-er.

That’s half of the system that works. The other part is in a fun jingle I heard somewhere along the way, and we’ve been using it ever since. We asked our children to create an Amazon list for each of their children, with their first name and the year. In that list, they include a selection of items in these four categories: something they want, something they need, something to wear (in the correct size), and something to read. And from there, we are able to use the list either for the exact item or for an idea of something we shop in person to purchase. I’ve given up on coded gift wrap, too, in a different pattern for each child – – now it’s just one of those glorified plastic bags decorated all in Christmas colors, and the four items go all in the same bag, one for each child on the years we are able to get together in person. On years when the children are with other family members and we FaceTime, the Christmas bags make it easier for the parents to organize the gifts and keep them hidden in their homes until Christmas. On years we are together, it means I’m not up wrapping at all hours of the night.

This system may not work for everyone, but it works for us, and when others try to grasp how we “do” Christmas with seven grandchildren and four children all in four different states from Atlantic to Pacific, I tell them: we have a budget and a system, and we stick to it. It does not take away from the Christmas cheer – – it keeps it in perspective! Most of all, it keeps this Nana from trying to outdo Santa, and that’s important to the real Santa.

If we find that in retirement our jingle needs a trim, I’ve thought ahead to the next system. It may sound something like this as the grandchildren reach their teenage years – something you want, plus something you need that’s either something to wear or something to read…..or greenery. We’ll see what the years bring.

On this Black Friday, happy shopping! May you find the perfect gift for everyone on your list, no matter what your system is, even if your system is no system at all. And may you find parking spaces close to every store if you are an in-person shopper.

…above all

no matter the level

of festivity and chaos and noise

may you find moments of

peace and quiet meditation

keeping the real reason for the season

at the heart

of it all

All of us, except for one grandson who did not make the October trip with us
Posted on

November 22: Wreath Seeking

The tree is up – all we need now is a Christmas wreath!

Today we’ll go hunting for a new wreath to go on our exterior garage wall and one for the back door. It’s the best way to spend a Saturday – seeking wreaths! We’ll have one of our grandsons along to help, too, and we can’t wait to spend the day with him.

Last year, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we rented a car in Boston to make a loop through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts following the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention I was attending at the time. As we left Kennebunkport, I spotted what I thought was a fruit stand on the side of the road. It looked a lot like where, in my rural Georgia county, we would pull over and buy watermelons or tomatoes. But as we neared, I could see that the people who were gathered around the long tables were not tenderly squeeze-testing tomatoes or thumping watermelons. They were creating fresh wreaths using the greenery stacked in piles on tables behind them.

A wreath-making stand! There is still a part of me deep inside that craves this L.L.Bean-style wreath that is all made of fresh evergreen and so natural and simple that it would rival any wreath that feels the need to proclaim Christmas in any other way than through real live nature, just greenery and berries. So it just might be that we find a wreath frame and some zip ties and twine and wire. It just might so happen that we take our little hacksaw and sharp camping axes and put on our hiking boots and go to the back side of the property and gather evergreens that we cut fresh to put on the frame and make one ourselves, New England style.

It would do my heart a lot of good to make a wreath with our grandson today. But we’ll have to be careful to watch for the elusive lellow bear if we trudge out into the woods. He’s out there somewhere…..

Wreath Seeker’s Haiku

it’s wreath-seeking day

balsams, firs, cedars, spruces

today we seek wreaths

Posted on

November Noel No-Nonsense Nonet

I used to laugh at those memes where families come home from trick-or-treating and put up the Christmas tree. I used to remind myself to give the turkey its day in the spotlight. I’ll admit it: I used to judge those folks, those ridiculous early decorators.

No, no, no, no, no! Not anymore.

The older I get, the more I realize I need to pace myself in decorating. It takes moving a chair to make a space for a tree, unboxing the Nativity set, and spinning a fresh bow for the year-round wreath on the east-facing front door (I love the way it frames the early morning sunrise through the door glass from my living room chair). If my husband and I are going to do all this decorating in our sixties, we need time to recover and to enjoy it before it’s time to take it all down again.

I’m firmly in the camp that if I’m putting it up, I want six to eight weeks to enjoy it. Anything less is too taxing on this body.

There have been years we didn’t decorate at all – – those years we went places and knew no one would be here to celebrate since we’d be in others’ homes in other states. But as grandchildren visit and we gather with friends and other family who often come on different weekends between now and the first of the year, we’ve come to understand those silly home-from-Halloween-now-let’s-put-up-the-tree memes.

Even though we decorate simply and minimally in the quiet shades of nature when we do, we realize it’s all about creating a Christmas ambiance that welcomes visitors who drop in anytime during the holidays. A simple burlap and twig tree, a box shrub wreath, a Nativity set and we’ll be ready to welcome the season. Come see us!

November Noel No-Nonsense Nonet

the older we get, the more we see

we need to decorate early

to recover from the work

(pacing is not enough)

dare I admit that

our Christmas tree

is going

up this

week????

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for providing teachers a space to write and share

Posted on

Merry Christmas!

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.

Posted on

A Calm Christmas: Clearing a Path for Dreams

Photo by Sam McCool on Pexels.com

This December, I’ve been slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), and in her final chapter of this book laden with the peace of the season, Chapter 10, Kempton encourages us to plan and dream in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. clearing a path for all good things to come our way. The week between these holidays is what Kempson calls The Hush – – the best time of year for reflecting on the past years’ blessings and dreaming about the bountiful blessings that the coming year will bring.

This week brings some of the most delightful times of the year – the time we gather with family to celebrate Christmas. Yesterday, we took our three Schnoodles on a long walk around the farm on their favorite trails to celebrate Winter Solstice by keeping close to nature. Today, we will begin our first gathering of the season with our oldest grandson, who will turn 15 in February. This week will also bring the birth of our seventh grandchild in our family. As we clear paths for dreams, we are blessed beyond measure to build those dreams with the grandchildren that we love and hold so dearly today. For tomorrow, they will be holding their own grandchildren and sharing the stories of their own lives.

The Hush is more important now than ever in my day to day life – particularly the older I get. I need to carve out an every-weekend Hush, if only for a day. I’ve realized that what I see and hear in the news and on social media, what I read in books and magazines, and even in my own conversations with others can prompt the most horrific nightmares. It’s why I have to be so intentional about what I allow to enter my mind and heart. It’s why I don’t read horror genre books or watch scary movies anymore, as I once did. It’s why I read more Mary Oliver poetry and books like A Calm Christmas.

Take last night, for example. Yesterday as we finished having lunch, my husband casually showed me a photograph of four planes he’d taken this week as he was waiting on a recipient of a delivery. The planes were flying parallel, but they were emitting trails that were all of the same length and looked more like horses racing on a track where the inside horse is a set distance just ahead of the second, each horse a distance ahead and aside from the next, as if running down the straightaway on a racetrack.

He told me that he finally had seen with his own eyes why people might be persuaded to believe in the chem trail conspiracy. I examined the otherwise benign photo, and sure enough – these were not passenger jets, because generally they follow a flight path. They tend to stay in line, as I’ve watched through the windows at night from my bed just southwest of the Atlanta Airport. There is a seasonal shift in the tree line from my vantage point, but the planes have flown consistently above certain branches of the trees, always in a straight line, and there are usually about 2 minutes between the blinking lights of these planes. They don’t fly side by side the way his photograph showed. I have watched the planes for years as a relaxation tool – much like counting sheep, only counting planes.

Naturally, with a headline that had popped up when I was logging into my office computer network earlier this week, I’d seen the start of a nightmare. I should have known one was coming. The headline assured the world that World War 3 has begun. With all of the drone footage recently, a cup and half of this toxic cinnamon-sugar story was added to the mix, blending and swirling in the most obnoxious way in my dream, too.

I was standing on the lawn of the office in my dream (keep in mind that my office has no lawn, so this was a different space). Apparently, we all liked to go outside and eat (in real life, we either eat together at tables or go out to lunch), but we stood instead of having any picnic tables outside anywhere. I could see four glowing red/orange mini nuclear weapons about the shape of softballs, positioned much like the planes in the photograph, coming at me from the sky as I stood there in the dream, and I heard the voice of our PowerSchool Coordinator’s voice announcing that “We have been The Pirates,” to our community, as a final sign-off since she had seen the oncoming missile attack as well and was making our final phone call to say goodbye to all the families and students we’d served in our area in rural Georgia.

I ran for cover behind a bush, knowing it would not matter, and after surviving the nightmare attack, I stood up, charred, recognizing that in my condition I would not survive much longer. I looked at the rubble of the building and how disaster had struck in this small area, and then began walking home along a nature trail, peaceful and covered in evergreen trees and bare limbs where birds were all gathered in great number on the branches, singing and chirping as if nothing had happened.

I stopped and thought about them. They knew. They knew, and they had flown outside the realm of danger to avoid the exposure to the radiation. This was their survival technique.

It occurred to me that I need to be more like these birds – to be vigilant and aware of what I allow to seep into my mind, because it will blow up in the most unexpected ways. I must be the gatekeeper of all that goes in.

My husband asked why I’d been awake earlier. I told him never to show me scary photos again, and he chuckled, remarking that he didn’t see how the picture he’d shown me was scary.

And then I explained it all to him.

He has agreed: no more pictures that might cause me to lose sleep and wake up as a signed-off Pirate on a charred countdown clock.

I could use your most comforting book recommendations as my next reading. I’ll be listening to books that bring peaceful assurance on Audible as I make my way north this week to Kentucky to swaddle my new grandson and rock him in my arms, praying for his safety and health all the days of his life. Prayer. Needed now more than ever in our lives and in our world.

Posted on

A Calm Christmas on Winter Solstice

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), and in Chapter 9, Kempton encourages us to consider a vision for the year ahead with intentionality.

Today was a slow-to-rise day, a day that started with a bit of a Netflix binge to get a few more episodes of the latest season of Virgin River in, sipping coffee and nibbling pumpkin bread in bed with the dogs asking for one little bite – and we did share with them. We have finished our stocking shopping and grabbed the last few items we needed from the grocery store, so now we are home and happy to be in for the day.

On this Winter Solstice, we got out into nature by taking the dogs on a walk down their favorite trails in their Christmas sweaters, since it is cold here today on this first day of winter. The time outdoors on the day when the Earth finally has its eyes closed all the way is a gift, especially since it is a Saturday when we are both off work and can amble leisurely in the greenery. Tomorrow, the eyes of the world begin springing back on their way to wide-open life again, a little at a time.

This is my day to think about my One Little Word for 2025 – it’s decision day for me.

As my One Little Word for 2025 continues to knock, I haven’t fully given it the time to visit me and chat with me in some sort of a job interview like I’m looking to hire as I normally do with the words I choose. This one just came to me and continues to rise to the top.

This will be the first year I haven’t chosen an actionable verb and will instead take an adjective if I choose the one I think will become my word. And I’m not abandoning PRAY – it still begins my day each morning as I drive to work. No radio, no audiobook – – my car becomes my prayer chamber, and that is an established habit that will not take a detour in place of a different word.

I will have a challenge for myself, too – an actionable verb I do weekly to go along with my One Little Word. More about that in a later post.

What’s your word for 2025 going to be, if you know yet? I love how people and their words choose each other.

Photo by Mareefe on Pexels.com
Posted on

A Calm Christmas: After Christmas

An easier 7 foot pencil tree

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.

Posted on

A Calm Christmas: Honoring the Melancholy

Photo by Julia Ustinova on Pexels.com

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2020), and in Chapter 6, she presents ways to honor the melancholy – reaching out with invitations, volunteering, and setting a place at an empty chair can be forms of honoring those we have lost or sadnesses we acknowledge. She urges us to reach out to others, whether we feel up or whether we feel down. Either way, we combat the loneliness and sadness when we feel this sense of purpose and connection.

I saw a meme last week. It said, “I agree with keeping Christ in Christmas, but I’d prefer it if we could keep Christ in Christians.” And I nodded in wholehearted agreement. All too often, I hear people grumble about helping the needy, reasoning that they will only spend the money on drugs or alcohol.

There are ways of meeting specific needs without unknowingly contributing to another’s addiction, though. I have made a practice of keeping some spare change and dollar bills handy in my pocket for the seasonal charity bell ringers, but I also enjoy keeping gift cards to local fast food restaurants as well – for those who are hungry. I feel a sense of responsibility to give, and assurance knowing that the need that will be met is hunger – – not a way to drown problems in alcohol or running the risk of making a situation worse for any children who may be dependent on the person receiving the assistance.

There are ways to make a difference in small increments, and even if the goal is to help one or two people a week, that is a step in the right direction – at least for me.

That is why I couldn’t get peace while drinking my seasonal peppermint milkshake in Chick-Fil-A last night. We’d gone to have a bowl of chicken soup for supper, and I’d noticed an older lady wheeling a full-size suitcase up to a table before getting in line to buy food. She’d spoken to an older gentleman and gestured to her suitcase, so I assumed she was an acquaintance. Since we are a short distance from the Atlanta airport, the suitcase didn’t seem at all unusual.

Until it did.

When she returned to sit down, she sat at the table behind the gentleman to whom she’d spoken. I started putting the pieces together when I I saw her mumbling to herself, carrying on a full-blown conversation on her own at her table. I surmised that she’d asked the man to keep an eye on her suitcase while she stood in line for food. When she moved her jacket hood up over her head, I had the opportunity to take a longer look, unbeknownst to her.

That’s when the suitcase became no ordinary suitcase but a way to set up house for the home she didn’t have. To endure the frigid night ahead, somewhere on the streets of the city.

She’d tugged at my Christmas spirit in such a way that I had to take some kind of action to help this human soul. I could see the struggle – it was visible to me since homelessness has affected someone near and dear to my heart, and all the telltale signs were evident – right down to the mental instability. This was someone’s daughter, and perhaps someone’s mother, sister, aunt, friend. There was no denying the truth that any help would be appreciated.

As we finished our meal, the line that had been forever long the whole time we’d been eating had miraculously disappeared. I was able to slip over to the register while my husband cleared our table. I purchased a gift card enough for a few meals and asked the Chick-Fil-A employee to deliver it to the woman for me to lessen the attention and avoid any embarrassment. Sure enough, the high school-aged boy took the gift card to the lady in the blue jacket with the hood up over her head with the suitcase propped at the end of her table.

And in this way, witnessing someone without a home at Christmas, I thought of the deep need to become a better steward of blessings. Certainly, one small act cannot meet the depth of need that is evident if we only look around, but a collection of small acts by those who are attuned to others around them can add up to make a notable difference.

I don’t share this story to bring attention to my act of giving, but to share the bittersweet joy that one small act of care can bring for both giver and recipient, even as we wish we could do so much more. Indeed, more is needed – we witnessed two more clear situations on the way home where needs were evident. I share this story to bring appreciation for the shelter and food that we do have and how so often the basic needs we may take for granted are brought into focus when we bear witness to those for whom the provisions of shelter, warmth, and food are only the dream.

After all, this is one small way to honor the melancholy and to make a difference in the season when our blessing deserves to be spread around for others to realize moments of comfort – and above all, to know that someone cares. Honoring the melancholy is not a comparative act, or one of positional self-worth or more-fortunate-than-thouness-so-let-me-toss-you-a-scrap. Honoring the melancholy is staying attuned to the rhythms of life with the understanding that these situations and emotions do not discriminate. Melancholy and adversity come alongside all of us throughout our lives in different ways – and if we are to be blessed in our own times of need, we must bless others in theirs.

Photo by omid mostafavi on Pexels.com

Posted on

A Calm Christmas: Celebrations During Christmas

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

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!

Posted on

A Calm Christmas: Comfort and Joy in Contemplation of Spirit

Photo by Bianca Debisko on Pexels.com

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.

Photo by Valeria Boltneva on Pexels.com