Bring more peace & cheer to your holidays
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The winter holidays offer us a time to celebrate, rejoice, and share love and good fortune. Yet for many people this time of year feels stressful, inauthentic, or devoid of deep meaning. This post contains ideas from my own experience about how to create joyous and memorable holidays. My wish is that in reading this, you’ll be inspired to make your holidays and holy days deeply meaningful.
Choose your rituals with care. I watched the news recently and listened to the stories of the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping crunch that happened in our town. They showed pictures of streets snarled with traffic, parking lots packed with cars, and people lined up before dawn waiting to be let into stores to shop. I cringed, thinking, “Why would anyone do this?” I remembered, of course, that this day of shopping is, for many, a ritual. For me, I know that this is not a ritual I want to include in my holidays. Through past participation, I know that I don’t enjoy it, find it stressful, get annoyed with other people, and end up smothering my authentic holiday cheer with impatience, resentment, and weariness.
Ask for what you want. At some time in our lives, most of learned to stop asking for what we wanted. Whether we were told such behavior was greedy, selfish, or simply too bold doesn’t matter. What’s true is that most of us don’t read minds. So let your wishes be known—“It’s important to me that we share a holiday meal with my family.” Then do your best to stay flexible and not demand that others acquiesce. Speak up for yourself, so that at least other people will be able to take your needs and wants into consideration.
Invite others to contribute. I brought to my marriage a host of Christmas rituals and their accoutrements (everything from many Christmas music albums and plenty of decorations to ornaments enough for several trees.) When the “right time” came and I jumped into my inherited and cherished ritual of putting up the tree and decorating the house while singing to Barbara Streisand or my Star Wars Christmas album (still one of my favorites), I noticed that my husband Bruce wasn’t really joining in. For me, companionship and shared fun were what my ritual was all about and the reason I did the ritual in the first place. The problem: we were doing MY Christmas ritual, which had little meaning for him. So we talked about what was important to each of us and what we each wanted to experience for the holiday. We then modified the ritual to include some of his favorite holiday music, and he got to put some of the household decorations where he wanted them to go. So instead of Bruce trying to force himself into my ritual, we both contributed pieces to a new experience that reflected both of our wants and needs.
Have some normalcy. I think that one of the biggest challenges of the holiday season is that much of our regular routine is ignored until after the celebrations are over. Everyday activities and habits (e.g., exercise, food/diet choices, sleep patterns) help ground us and give us comfort in a world of unknowns. While there may be some habits you choose to set aside during the holidays, there are likely several others that would serve you to retain. When you keep some regularity and routine, the holiday whirlwind can blow through your life without toppling you over or knocking you off course.
Feed your soul by receiving & giving. I believe that our hearts know that our spirit is nourished by both receiving and giving, yet we often let our past experience and learned behaviors overrule our deeper wisdom. As one of my spiritual leaders has said, if you hold your breath and don’t give away the carbon dioxide, you have no room in your lungs for the gift of oxygen. Giving and receiving is about more than just gifts. It encompasses the sharing of time, attention, love, peace, gratitude and more. Allow yourself to experience both giving and receiving and be a miser with neither. Open your heart to the gifts (non-material and material) that others seek to share with you. Give willingly of yourself, symbolically and otherwise, to those with whom you choose.
“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
May each and every one of you thoroughly enjoy your holidays. Thank you for the gift of your presence here at the Lavender Log — I am grateful for your comments and your community. I look forward to continued connections in the year ahead!
With love and peace,
“Expect nothing; live frugally on surprise.”
~ Alice Walker
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