December always comes and goes much too quickly for me. I love this time of year, all of the anticipation leading up to Christmas – the music, the decorations and the surrounding energy. As a classroom teacher, I found the weeks between Thanksgiving and the Winter Break to be especially magical. While it is true that the energy of an elementary classroom is heightened in December, I honestly didn’t mind, as each school day held so much holiday fun. Santa-themed engineering projects, paper snowflakes to be made, and the reading of all of my favorite holiday classics – these were the activities that filled much of my weekday hours between 9am and 3pm.
There is always so much that I want to do as a means of celebrating this season, and most years I am left feeling like I rushed through the month in an attempt to squeeze it all in. I manage to check an absurd number of things off of my December List, but how many of those things was I really there for? How many of those things did I really enjoy or fully experience? It is very unsatisfying to love a holiday season and yet to feel like you moved through it in an unconscious swirl and haze of to do’s. I want this year to be different.
When December comes to an end, I am almost always left feeling a bit blue … a bit like I wasn’t really there – my body was, but not my mind … not really. And this leaves me feeling disappointed. The holiday season often involves a lot of commitments – there are cookies to bake, presents to wrap, and gatherings to attend. It is easy for me to end up overextending myself and then to feel resentment around my growing task list, which takes me further from a place of presence and enjoyment. It is difficult for me to say no and I actually do want to do it all. But the reality is, I can’t do it all, at least not well.
When I pack too much into my days, I end up getting things done but feeling both disappointed with the product that I turned out and exhausted from the effort. The day comes to a close and I feel disconnected, asking “What just happened?”. I don’t want Christmas day to pass and for me to be left asking, “What just happened?”.
I am setting the intention this holiday season to bring more enjoyment and beauty to my Christmas List items – to do a bit less, but for all that I do to be done with my whole self there. To achieve this will require more of my presence – a full consciousness of the exact moment that I am in, turning off the internal dialogue that pushes me into a future task or a past memory. It will require mindful awareness, and attention to detail, so as to be the artist of the experience I most want to create. It will require more blank space in my schedule – space to sit and savor what I just created instead of rushing onto what I think I must do next.
When I am baking cookies, I will just bake cookies. Instead of haphazardly measuring flour while talking on the phone, I will carefully layer the flour into the measuring cup, running it through the sifter and into the glass mixing bowl atop a clean countertop. While I bake, I will turn on my favorite holiday playlist and don an apron. Why? Because to me that creates enjoyment and beauty – to me, that is fun! Those small adjustments to the simple act of baking make a world of difference in how I approach the task. They allow for the full realization of the process as opposed to simply getting it done to move onto what comes next.
When I am done baking those cookies, I will brew a cup of tea and just sit. I will sit, delighting in the smell of freshly baked treats, and gaze out the window. I will breathe and pause. Then, when I am ready, I will move off to create another beautiful, thoughtful, experience.
Such elaborate attention to a task, while creating a more pleasing result, does involve more time. This means that, in order for me to maintain my awareness and attention, I will likely need to say no to some things. That is okay with me. I won’t be able to do it all this holiday season, but all that I do I will do with love, more presence, and greater joy. My hope is that this will alleviate, or atleast soften, those January blues that come creeping in post Christmas.
As you can probably imagine, I don’t want to leave this with Christmas though. I am often thinking about what comes next, what more I need to do before I can really relax, worrying about some event that may or may not ever happen. This continuously pulls me out of the moment. Things that I looked forward to, become just another item to check off once I am in them. I want to bring this intention of finding a deeper level of enjoyment and creating an authentic sense of beauty to more of my moments, to more of my days; to put my phone down and look up; to listen when a friend is talking as opposed to thinking about all that I need to finish once she leaves; to savour my dinner without instantly jumping to, “but what’s for dessert?”. I want less days that end with me feeling so out of body, less days left wondering “what just happened?”.
“Do one thing at a Time, and while doing it put your whole Soul into it to the exclusion of all else.” – Swami Vivekananda
It is this “one thing at a time” sort of approach that I have never really been that great at. Still, doing just one thing to the fullest of its potential, is where I am placing my energy this Christmas season. It won’t happen 100% as I want it to, because I am human and I will get caught up in the hustle of the day from time to time. But when I find myself a bit off track, in that space of disconnect, I will bring myself back to my intention, allowing myself to start again with grace and acceptance for the journey.
If this speaks to you in any way, I encourage you to choose even just one thing off of this year’s Christmas/Holiday List and approach it with a greater sense of openness – what can you do to bring a deeper level of satisfaction and enjoyment to the task? Where can you let go of something else so as to create more space for this particular item? And when things don’t go exactly as planned, as they rarely ever do, can you allow yourself to be flexible, patient and to embrace the process with less attachment to the outcome?
Happy Holidays – may your moments exist of an awareness that leads to enjoyment and beauty.
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