Tis' the Season

Thanksgiving is over. It is officially the holiday season. You can safely turn on the Christmas music without facing the disgust from others that it is "too early". You can admit that your Christmas shopping is started, if not well under way. You can Griswold out your house, get your tree up and decorated, and bake those sugar cookies LOUD and PROUD.

I did not get my Christmas shopping done before the first of the month, like I was kinda hoping too. (But next year I am all over that. I will be done, done, done by December 1st.) What I don't love about the season? The stress of gift finding and buying. I love to give gifts, but I hate that I think about it non-stop until I've gotten everyone on my list checked off.

I am trying really hard this year to take time to be mindful and Be Still. To take time every day (or at least a few times a week) to sit in the quiet and listen. I desperately want Christmas to be more about making room in my heart for God's son and less about commercialism and consumerism. I'm sure I feel this way every year, but I want to simplify. I want to let go of what is not important. Instead of wasting time and energy on what is not important, I want to use my time and energy on what is.

I want more singing along to Christmas music and snuggling on the couch in front of our glowing tree. I want more silliness and laughter and soaking up the look on my baby's face when she sees her sisters. I want more glasses half-full and silver-linings and rainbows with pots of gold at the end.

Happy December! Wishing everyone lots of snowmen and cocoa with marshmallows!!

xoxo, christine