refreshing holidays
about Halloween i start to really begin thinking about Christmas. start to make some lists, look seriously at the calendar, begin to decide on themes for decorations, realize what is really going to get made as gifts, begin planning our yearly Christmas Party (which is within the first two weeks of Dec.).
sometimes it seems early to be thinking of these things, seems like fall is just arriving....which it is....but if the planning doesn't start now, i know much of what i want to do will not get done.
our actual Christmas Holiday celebrations are FAIRLY low key. FAIRLY.
after reading a passage today in A Thousand Days in Tuscany, i thought to myself that i should continually work toward making and keeping them low key. enjoying that holiday time to its fullest. after all i have two weeks of vacation then and i should enter that time ready to relax, and enjoy the everyday.
........"Prescribed holidays can seem a sham to me. I'd rather have a dose of celebrating in each day, some small recognition of the miracles contained in it. The grand spectacles put me off. They end. And when they do, one often feels down rather than refreshed by them. I like my daily life enough so that I'd rather live it even on Christmas. I want to light the fire, bake my bread, cook a beautiful lunch and dine. Sleep, read by the fire, stomp through the woods ........" page 235 Marlena De Blasi
don't get me wrong, i do enjoy the celebration of that special day of Christmas. But many things in this passage did ring true with me. one being that the everyday is something to be enjoyed and two that i have often found myself frazzle instead of refreshed after the Holidays.
i guess what i'm going to try to learn from this is to practice a Refreshing Holiday and to enjoy the Everyday.
just something for me to think about.
For me, I choose to embrace both - the over-the-top grand-spectacle of Christmas, and the quiet, sit together on the couch (no fireplace, either, Odette - so I have to settle for multiple candles, and the Christmas tree), sip hot chocolate kind of moments, too. Each night in 'Advent', no matter how insane or packed the day was, we sit by the 'Advent wreath' and read through "Jotham's Journey" or "Bartholomew's Passage" with the younger kids. It ends our day in peace. We light little candles and walk with them up to the kids' room. It helps me to end the hectic days thinking I'm not the worst mom on the planet ;-) (Comment this)