Tis The Season.

*Photo by the amazing Erica Bartel

We fight desperately for the unique connection that comes with the Christmas holiday.  Imagery and hope fill us, until reality and tension leave us clenching to an ever shortening rope that unravels somewhere between Christmas and New Year.

Chastened to enjoy the moment while commitments and need bang relentlessly at our already overwhelmed door.  As deeply as I long to be present, I equally want to fill my cocoa with too much schnapps and pass out under the lopsided tree.

Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook show me the perfect skill of my contemporaries, the unrivaled perfection of their all together home and lives.  Their houses decorated with light and charm, their children coordinated and smiling gleefully for the camera.  I trip over legos, scold my children, and bake half burned cookies, the frosting turns to an interesting state of brown after all of the colors are mixed together while my back is turned.

Christmas.  Joy.  Peace.  Harmony.

Or is it Chaos.  Tension.  Stress.

The well meaning will encourage us to enjoy the moments, their pressing guilt fills us with shame that perhaps we aren't valuing the hand holding and joy filled eyes enough.  If you are like me, you cuddled close to whichever sleepy head found your lap in the wee hours when dawn has not fully broken forth and your tree twinkles it's glistening lights, hot coffee in your hand, and this moment is the heart clenching breath of I love you mommy.  Only for the light to break free from the nights hold and suddenly it's shrieks of we're going to be late, get dressed, leave the ornaments on the tree, stop unwrapping the gifts, stop eating the advent candy.

Because life is not a succession of picture perfect moments.  It is in the chaos, the stress, the wild unnecessary pressure that we find little treasures of joy and peace and perfection.   It's while the kids are screaming about hating cutting down the tree that we laugh and run and smile.  It's the memories built over cups of cocoa and weary hearts finding each other in the midst of this ever changing world.  It's laughing at twinkling lights while we drive around in our old car, the heat fogging the windows.  It is the breathless I love you after chase and anger.  It's forgiveness and gentleness.

Enjoy this holiday, your winter season.  Enjoy the perfect in the middle of the ridiculous.  Smile at a stranger, give whole heartedly.  No matter how desperate we are to cling to this season, we will fall into moments of stress, frustration, and guilt.  Let it go.  Breathe deep and look into dark eyes that are pushing tacks into the hot cookies you just baked to take to the dessert auction.  Then laugh and maybe take a sip of schnapps.

Reflections.

It is a brilliant day.  Blue skies and cold, but not crazy, wear a million coats, frozen face, cold.  Pleasantly cold.  I love December.  All month I get to enjoy every little moment.  I have an excuse to shop and wrap things in pretty paper and I get to drink as much hot cocoa with candy canes as I want.  This is a great deal of cocoa.  If your supermarket is running low, more than likely it is because of my massive consumption.  

I love the smell of pine, I love brewing my big cup of coffee and turning on Christmas music, while the lights on the tree glow joyfully through the room.  Simple to say this is a very happy time.  

Beyond all of the magic of Christmas, this is the last month of the year.  Probably the last month of the world, because everything is going to end in 2012.  I love to take this time to reflect on my year, to use what I've learned to propel me forward into the next.  I don't typically look back and feel a twinge of regret.  This year I do.  Not condemning regret, more of a realization that I could have done it better and a deep desire to press into this next with purpose.  

What is purpose?  It is both intention and the reason we exist.  In its nature, it is the outward looking of our lives.  The necessity to carry, focus and determination.  

Often I can find myself wondering where did this day go?  What did I accomplish, attain, or more importantly, impart?  In this moment, I find myself looking back in review and speculating upon the very little I purposed.  

This could turn to a discouraging diatribe on all I should have done, all I wish I did, and how I am somehow less than, for not doing or being 'better'. 

But, I have no use for that.  

In these few years I have lived, I can tell you that nothing good will come from beating yourself down or wishing you could change what has already been.  There is no life there and it's better to move from it as quickly as possible.  

I reflect, because I want to grow from where I have been.  As I am feeling now, I don't want to redo last year, I want to transform, move forward with decision and purpose.  

I want to grow.

This was definitely a difficult season.  I think in the middle of hard times you can miss all that is being accomplished in you and through you, because it's not easy to look beyond the immediate.  Yet, in this place I want to focus.  To live in consistency, despite what life may feel like.

Some goals I have for this year, to improve over my last.  

I want to focus on my children.  To enjoy them.  To always be kind.  To be patient.  To listen.  

Less rushed.  Better at taking deep breaths and not reacting to the stress of the moment.  Who cares if we are going to be thirty minutes late, even though we were trending to be early.  Getting mad will not get us there any earlier.  (burn this in me oh Lord!)

To see each day as full.  Even if we never leave the house.  To make our time matter, because we are focused and intentional in each interaction.

To be a joy and blessing to every person that we encounter.  May their day be brighter because they were near us.  

Even if it happens in snippets, to take those moments and just be with the Lord.  It doesn't have to be a cup of coffee, sitting on the couch, with the lights just so, and quiet.  It can be the chaotic ball just missing my head and children singing gleefully, while twirling hands dismantle a room.  I want to find my peace in those moments.  Learn huge wisdom, when life is beyond me.  

To pursue my dreams.  With wild ambition and passion, not despising the baby step process.

These may not seem like huge wild sweeping goals.  Each in its own way is moving me with purpose.  Keeping me held to a higher demand on my life.  Propelling me to be the woman, wife, and mother to whom I have been destined.  

May this amazing season be filled with great joy.  May you sink your teeth into the very heart of life.  And enjoy giant cups of rich cocoa, don't forget the candy cane.