Happy, Merry, and Bright

A Holiday with two little ones leaves very little time for writing. Multiple holidays and family birthdays with two little ones leave even less time.

Somewhere there are pictures of carefully crafted gifts...and someday I will post them, possibly along with instructions. Somewhere there are Simple Saturday drafts, about simplifying these family holidays. But we were just too busy for simplicity.

All that said, I hope you had a Happy Solstice, a Merry Christmas, Bright Hannukah, and Joyous anything else you celebrate at this time of year.

We did.

Blessings and Peace to All.

Mindful Monday: Ride the Crazy Wave

It's the holidays. It's festive. It's crazy. There are little people in my world who are so excited they simply cannot contain themselves.

Family comes into town this weekend. We go with my family (all 12 or so of us) to the beach for four days of solid merriment. We get home from that and get ready for Christmas. We don't start coming down until after New Years.

Everything is upset; my housekeeping schedule, my blogging schedule, the kids routine.

My Mindful Monday this week is to do what needs to be done, enjoy the madness, release the blog schedule, but try to keep (somewhat) to the housekeeping schedule. I'll keep posting through the next few weeks, sharing the holiday madness with you all, but I'll do it on my schedule, as I want to or have time to.

Because my real Mindful Monday is to enjoy the Holidays and all the chaotic, glittering, exuberant madness.

Simple Saturday - Holiday Edition: The Great Toy Give away

One thing I try to teach, model, and live at this time of year is giving. It is a season of giving, not of getting. So while we do make lists for Santa, we try to focus more on what we are giving to others - talking about who we are gifting as we are making gifts and baking cookies, and how much those recipients will enjoy our gift.

We also have a yearly tradition that we call "The Great Toy Give-Away". It happens today, the first Saturday of December. We've done it every year since Brother-Bug was one (that first Christmas he was 3 months old, so didn't have much to giveaway).

The idea is simple. We look through our toys and find some nice ones that we no longer use. We pick them out and take them to a local family homeless shelter. While we are doing it, we talk about what it might be like to have Christmas morning without a house, how we are helping other kids have presents, maybe some kids won't have a present unless we share some of our excess.

Every year it is a little hard. Every year I am warmed to my core when Brother-Bug gets into it and truly gives from his heart. My favorite was when he gave up a Tonka dump truck, so shocked was he (at three) that some kid might not have even one toy truck!

I've sweetened the deal a little. As we go through the toys, we find a present from Santa. It comes with a note thanking our family for being so generous. The present is usually a Christmas DVD. It doesn't add to our toy load and helps us look forward to this exercise in generosity.

Also, we've linked this with the getting of the tree. Take the toys, pick out a tree, come home and decorate, watch a new Christmas movie. It ends up being a really nice day.

My hope is that we make some space in our toy storage for some of the new toys arriving in a few weeks.  My hope is that the kids learn that giving is an essential part of this season. My hope is that they take the needs of others into consideration when approaching this most festive of seasons.

They might hate it now, or tolerate their Mother's insistence. But maybe the lesson will stick. I hope.

Simple Saturday - The Holiday Edition: Adjustments

Over the next month or so I want to share Holiday plans and preparations with you. Of all the things I do as a parent, the hardest to simplify is the Holiday season. There's Christmas, which is a simplicity nightmare in itself. But there is also both mine and Papas birthdays. And my side of the family does a four day beach trip for Winter Solstice. Starting with Thanksgiving, it feels like a tinsel-festooned roller coaster that I cant stop.

I'll claim responsibility for a fair part of the chaos. I love decorating and baking cookies. I love making thoughtful gifts. I want to have traditions sprinkled throughout the month and those traditions take time and thought and energy. But I love it.

What we are slowly learning to do as a family is adjust our expectations - and to help those around us adjust theirs.

After the first Christmas with Brother, Papa-Bug and I realized we wanted some holiday time quiet at home. We stopped going to his parents house for the whole day of presents and movies and dinner and what not. It was always kind of exhausting and meant a day out and social. We want the Little-Bugs to enjoy the mellow pace of the holidays, as well as the familial gaiety. Now we have Christmas morning at home - slow, unscheduled, mellow, and growing our own traditions. We go to Grandma and Grandpa's for a dinner and presents.

This was disappointing for the grandparents, and for that I feel bad. But... These are the holidays and I don't want us to go through them feeling like I have to meet others holiday standards and expectations. It's important that we all feel comfortable and festive. It's important to me that my kids have traditions linked to home.

This year, just this past week, we broke with tradition and spent Thanksgiving with Brother-Bug's God Patents instead of at a grandparent house. It was so relaxing. It was the Thanksgiving I have been wishing for. Close, quiet, no expectations, no historical familial drama... Good food and lots to be thankful for. Added benefit was watching Brother-Bug ground and center the way he does only with those beloved God Parents.

Again, grandparents were sorry not to have our presence and for that I am sorry.

I'm not sorry for taking my family's traditions into my mind and hands, making them into holidays that meet the needs and dreams of me, Papa-Bug, and the Little-Bugs. Those dreams will certainly involve biological and extended family. We are truly blessed that we have so many loving people who want to celebrate with us. I keep in mind that I am responsible for the Little-Bugs in this house having a fabulous time, and for building traditions that are comfortable and sustainable for many years. I am not responsible for how other people feel when I adjust our family's traditions and Holiday commitments. We will continue to search for balance between obligation, expectation, dreams, desires, and realities. My focus is on having fun, all of us looking forward to each new holiday delight, sharing with family sometimes, with friends sometimes, and staying quietly at home reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales" sometimes.

Every year I find a place or two that I can make a change and adjust my expectations. When I am looking forward to the holidays and looking for ways to simplify those holidays, a good place to start, in my experience, is with how much we do and with whom we do it.