Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2017

The Christmas Picture

The twinkling lights.  The humming of familiar tunes.  The smell of cinnamon and spices.  Late  nights of wrapping after littles are tucked in. Christmas movies in pj's with snuggles and hot chocolate.  Warm embraces of loved ones who live far away.   The things I love about Christmas float through my mind and land gently on my lips in a smile. Oh, there are hard things, too.  Loved ones who aren't here anymore.  Relationships that have changed.  The stress of spending.  The need  to meet magical expectations.   One of my littles trying to play a game she was given declares, "This isn't how I thought it would be."  Neither is most of life I find myself responding.  The words jump out of my mouth before I think.  But we can't despair.  "Keep trying and when you figure it out it will be worth it," I say.     It's in the hard that we wake up.  When entertainment and busyness and life lull us to sleep on the inside, the hard sends little