A few weeks into the month of December, something completely unexpected, unplanned, and unwanted occurred in my life... it was basically a haze of last minute activities and events that left me in a state somewhere between Eboneezer Scrooge and the Grinch. My friend who has always deemed me a "Christmas elf" was in shocked confusion all month, as was my husband, family and admittedly myself. Although many of the activities were "fun" for the kids, they really were not for me since I somehow ended up being at the forefront of planning and organizing most of them, I'm still not sure how I got this job over & over again - various parties for the kids in groups they belong to and so on. But the one that took the cake, or that you might say was the straw that broke the elf's back was the last minute request to put together a children's Christmas program for church - one that would take up the entire church service (by last minute I mean a week and a half before the date it was to be performed). Did I say "yes" to this insane request... YES!!! what was I thinking??? - but never again. All in all everything went well with the program and all the other events, but I had nothing left to give at home... the Christmas elf was no more this year... resulting in few decorations, even fewer gifts, next to nothing of our usual family holiday traditions... sad I know. The kids did fine though, but thought mom was a bit "off" this year. Christopher's wise words to me were to" just say 'no' more mom..." I added that to my resolution list for 2009.
Christmas eve & day were very nice though - surprisingly quiet. ALL the company we expected cancelled. We were alone and it was lovely. Christmas eve we attended a lovely service at our church that brought me back to where I had wanted to be all month - focused on Christ with peace in my heart. Late that night we even watched my favorite holiday film It's A Wonderful Life - something we had not been able to do on Christmas eve for a number of years and I had missed it. We ended up having a very relaxing Christmas Day and holiday vacation due to repeat weather situations causing cancellations, poor travel and so on.
New Years was a blast though... we travelled to Fargo to see a few families who are dear to us and bring in the New Year in style with lots of yummy food, fun music and great conversation. It was a pretty happening party made up of: 6 adults, 2 teens, 1 preteen, 4 kids, & 2 dogs.... Ya, if you do the math, the big people were really outnumbered!
Now we are in January and life resumed it's normal state today with homeschool, activities and schedules... but at least we had some down time to end the year :-)
I have made some very firm decisions about how we spend our time next December and plan to stick by them no matter what, after all I have 11 months to practice saying "NO!". I should have it down by then huh?
Next year, I'm confident I'll be back to my normal self in December.... ???? Let's hope anyway :-)
2 comments:
Learning to say 'no' is one of those extremely important skills that a lot of us have a hard time with. But it is a skill well worth acquiring, and often essential to maintaining one's sanity.
I love saying NO. In fact, perhaps I have become too good at it (there is something to ponder) as I have become so practiced. I continue to encourage you to make space in your life for....well, for whatever may come along that day, but you won't have the opportunity to just "be" if you don't.
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