Most wonderful time of year.

Christmas was fantastic with all of its magic, tinsel, shortbread, gifts, visits, late nights and sugar. Amazing and chaotic all wrapped up with a bow. I loved and savoured it.

And then all of a sudden, it's over.

It's December 30th today. I can take a deep breath and exhale and put on the comfiest of clothes. Ahhhh. Yes!

Now that Christmas is behind me, I am enjoying and embracing one of my most favourite times of the year. I savour the days between Boxing Day and New Year's Day. I just love them. They're a chance to unwind and reflect on the past twelve months and a chance to dream about the next twelve months. An opportunity to set fresh goals and dream new dreams...

A brand new year. A fresh slate. A new beginning, full of hope and possibility. 

But before I can embrace the new, I always feel the need to reflect on and let go of the past year.

If you're like me and love this kind of thing, you might enjoy this resource and this one.

On the board of Elders of which I am a part, we spend the morning of December 31st together reflecting on the past twelve months and then dreaming about the year to come and setting goals and casting vision. Hands down it is my most favourite meeting of the whole year. I just love the space to have these kinds of conversations.

On our board, one of the many tools we use for our personal yearly evaluation is the Start - Stop - Sustain. I've become quite familiar with this tool because we also use it at Summit Team Building where I work from time to time as a facilitator when we debrief a team building challenge.

Start - what do I want start doing?

Stop - what do i want to stop doing?

Sustain - what do I want to keep doing?

The Start - Stop - Sustain tool can be applied to all areas of life: relationships, health, finances, spiritual growth and so on.

I have friends, who together with their family choose a family word each year to summarize their hopes and dreams for the year. One year their word was YES.  Isn't that great? I have other friends who choose personal words for the year. You can read more about that idea here.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Pause and imagine your life 365 days from now. Picture what you would want it to look like. Now imagine what it would take for that to become real. What steps do you need to take for that picture to become a reality?

The one piece of advice I would give (I've learned this the hard way) is to make goals super manageable, practical and bite size. Remember something is better than nothing :)

Last year was full of many highs and lows. Joys and disappointments. I'm grateful for all of them. And I'm sensing and believing great things for 2015. Happy New Year :)

Inner Child in all of us.

“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.”

Mark Twain

This year, I was having a harder time getting into the Christmas spirit. On the other, my girls long for snow and found that first snowfall to be nothing short of magical. They are the ones that had to beg me to put up the tree. I waited until the last minute to order Christmas cards and if it wasn't for their prompting, I would have done little decorating.

I'm reminded that often kids look at Christmas and think about Christmas through different lenses than we adults do. Along the way I'm realizing that somehow I've lost my wonder. This Christmas I'm hoping to be rekindled in my child likeness.

This is a message frome Christmas 2013 that Beth wrote on our kitchen chalkboard.

I read somewhere recently about the idea that there is an inner child in all of us, buried beneath the practical and the responsible and the serious. Deep down there is a small child within us that we carry with us always, suppressed as he or she may be.

I've been thinking lately of the idea of looking at people through that lens. I know this is a bit out there, but stay with me for a second. Think about a time when you're dealing with a challenging person and remembering (even picturing) that they were once a little boy or girl with hopes and dreams and inhibitions and giggles and even a story, helps give compassion.  

Interestingly enough I remember my mom telling me one time that the average 4 year old laughs 300 times a day and the average 40 year old laughs 4 times a day.

This will likely be Beth's last Christmas believing in Santa. Already she knows the reality about the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy. It's just a matter of time now. Deep down I think she has doubts about Santa but the little girl in her doesn't want to face them. The funny thing is, Steve and I have never made a big deal about Santa. In fact, we totally downplay the Santa piece wanting to focus more on the spiritual significance of the holiday. The girls don't even get gifts from Santa, just their stockings. In spite of all of this, my seven year old loves the idea of magic and wonder and wants to hang on as long as possible to Santa.

It's brought me face to face with the reality that I've become practical. Maybe even a bit jaded.

I came across something recently online (I can't find it now to reference it, but I have a feeling it was by Anne Lamott, whom I adore) and it was along the idea that none of us were born fearful, perfectionist or controlling. Rather these were traits we developed along the course of our beautiful, imperfect and messy lives.

This Christmas I am wanting to let go a little bit of the practical and open myself up to the magical. The mystical. The wondrous. This Christmas I'm looking to reconnect with the inner child in me.

Maybe it's time for me to make snow angels, sing out loud and dance like nobody's watching.

Last Saturday as I spent the day with Beth at our local Santa Clause parade and then at a Wizard of Oz performance, I found myself viewing it all through her eyes and guess what - it was magical. It was nothing short of wonderful.

And last week when I was out in the fresh snowfall for a run, I stopped and made a snow angel because that's what kids would do and I don't want to lose or suppress the inner child in me, not at Christmas or anytime really.

Anyways ultimately isn't Christmas all about mystery? The mystery of the incarnate. The child in a manger. The star. The shepherds. The wise men. The mystery.

I have so many great children in my life and maybe part of loving the children around us is seeing the world through their eyes.

Want to join me?

Christmas 1974

Waiting well.

Advent has taken in a whole new meaning for me this year. At its core, advent is about waiting with expectancy. Advent is the anticipation of the Christ child that we celebrate at Christmas. As I have mentioned before, this year I'm in a season of waiting. I'm making peace with mystery. I'm living with uncertainty. I read this post not too long ago by Sarah Bessey and my heart jumped inside me and cried out yes, that's what I'm feeling! And as often only the Spirit works, I keep noticing, being drawn to and reading about advent and the waiting. About the longing and the joy of anticipation.

These days some areas of my life have closure and answers and others do not. I'm starting to realize that we're all waiting for something. We're all in a season of longing in one way or another. Ultimately we're all waiting for Christ to come again and make all things new and bring about His kingdom here on earth.

The cry of my heart is O come o come Emmanuel. Emmanuel meaning God with us. Meaning we're not alone. He's in the waiting with you and I.

I'm waiting and I want to wait well. I have a friend who is also is a season of "waiting". We've adopted this phrase of "waiting well".

By the phrase "waiting well", I'm talking about waiting with hope and expectation rather than despair. Waiting with gratitude and trust rather than complaining and self pity. About choosing well in a season of longing and uncertainty. About leaning into the journey of mystery and being okay with not having all of the answers. Asking humbly, "what can I learn from this?". This is what's behind the idea of "waiting well". It's HARD stuff and most of the time it's a choice.

I have a feeling that I'm not the only one who needs the encouragement today to wait well. If that's you, I'm right in the thick of this with you and cheering you on in the journey. Let's do this well!

When Steve and I were first married, I worked at a church and one crisp and snowy December the minister and his wife gave us an advent candle wreath. It was lovely and festive, but truthfully we had no idea what to do with it. Generally when we had family or friends coming over we would just light all four of the candles and put it as a center piece on the table.

I had grown up with in a Presbyterian faith tradition where we celebrated advent and each Sunday in December my church family would light a candle and share liturgy about peace, hope, joy, love and the Christ Child on Christmas Eve. Even still, the advent tradition was not rooted deeply in me yet. Then fast forward to being married for over a decade and one day I was purging and cleaning out my house and (gasp) can you believe I parted with that advent wreath. I pitched it. We weren't practicing advent in an intentional way and the candle wreath seemed a bit archaic (I can't believe I'm admitting this).

No biggie until this year. 

This Christmas all I can think about is that wreath. I am wishing I had that advent wreath and the tangible symbol of waiting that it is. I can picture it in my mind perfectly. I even checked my Christmas boxes again just in case maybe just maybe I actually didn't throw it out. No such luck. I investigated into making a purchase locally and even looked on line to find one. Still no luck. I'm still looking and hopefully by next Christmas I'll have one.

As I dove into this month of December, I was gearing up for a BUSY month. I was preparing to work at two schools in addition to all of the stuff that goes along with Christmas...shopping, parties, card writing, baking, decorating and so on. It turned out that both schools pushed pause and decided to wait until the first week of January to begin the literacy project of which I am a part. Then, the clutch broke on my car and it was sent to the transmission shop. There it was torn apart, parts were ordered and parts were sent away to be rebuilt (it's really all a foreign language to me). Anyways, I was without a car for seven days. SEVEN. Can you believe it? I had to cancel plans and life sloooooowed right down. What I thought would be a fast paced month ended up being slow. At first it was painful. I kept thinking of all the things I could be doing, And then it became a gift. A chance to reflect on the past year. A chance to pause. A chance to pray and journal. A chance to rest. I consumed a lot of tea, hot chocolate and coffee. It was like I was forced to take a sabbatical. On the last day of my forced home stay, it snowed hard. It was a winter wonderland and I had a snow day all by myself (which by the way is the best kind). It made me think that perhaps it was all a part of the advent. A part of learning to wait well.

 O come o come Emmanuel

P.S. This podcast was a good encouragement and challenge to me in my journey of waiting well.