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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 11:00am | IP Logged
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...the makings of Christmas have begun.
My husband called this morning with the date of the company party. I exhaled a long sigh as I opened up my calendar to December and my mind started to race.
It was so easy being the child.  But the mother bears all the responsibility of seeing these plans carried out and buying the gifts and organizing everything!
I know this conversation is an old one but I am positively uncreative this year. The only plans I made for December are cookie baking and taking the whole month off from schoolwork. I don't want to over-plan or over-commit.
Still I refuse to play the role of Scrooge. 
We will make the parties and the gatherings. We will do the live nativity at the church. We will do the gift-exchange. We will have the family gathering at our house. We will have Christmas dinner here. My children will enjoy a month of festivities. ANd, oh yes, we will have a b-day party in the mist of all this other activity.
See...I don't need to "plan" anything. The month plans itself.
But I already see our quiet time of non-scheduled days ekeing away.
I know I'm not the only one who struggles with the personal want to observe the season of Christmas with peace and beauty in the home versus the world knocking outside my door wanting to share tidings of great joy.
And I will do it but I'm not looking forward to it this year. And that makes me sad. 
I see and read all the Christmas notebooking and planning and ideas I just don't feel like doing any of it.
I feel like the whole month goes by in a rubble of activity and at the end of the month nothing looks stellar, nothing looks heavenly, nothing looks peaceful, nothing looks angelic and tranquil. And I do not feel peaceful and refreshed at the end of the month.
Everything looks and seems half-done, half-planned, half-carried out. And it shows. 
It's a cluttered month...plain and simple. My house is left cluttered. My calendar is cluttered. My mind is cluttered.
I just bagged away the Halloween decorations. The thought of climbing into that attic to hunt down the Christmas decorations is a little overwhelming. I tend to wait until after Thanksgiving to take down the autumn deco and get out the winter deco but I know these few weeks of Nov. will race by very quickly.
How do you meet these plans with the same joy of a child? How do you embrace the outside engagments of December while staying true to yourself and your family in the home?
How do you approach the holiday with wanting to observe the "true reason for the season" in a world that books the month of December before it even gets here?
My mind is already racing as I know every weekend in Dec. will be filled to overflowing.
It's easy to say "do it" but it's the logistics that we have to mull our way through. HOW do we "do it"? It's that elusive, vague "little and hidden" approach that I'm looking for. How do we find it in a whirlwind of activity and clutter?
__________________
Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks
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MichelleW
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 11:34am | IP Logged
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Something I have been doing for about seven years now that really helps: in mid-November sit down (by yourself) and prayerfully read the Christmas story.--Matthew 1-2, Luke 1-2, John 1:1-14, Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6-7, Daniel 2:44-45 and 7:14. Ask the Lord to open the eyes and ears of your heart this season to hear His loving, teaching Voice. Ask for an aspect of the season on which to focus, meditate, and learn from. Commit yourself to learning the lesson you are asking the Lord to teach you.
Questions for meditation:
1. What aspect of the Christmas story speaks to you this year?
2. Go back often in your personal quiet time to that part of the story. Do you notice anything you hadn’t noticed before?
3. How is this aspect a lesson for your own life?
Doing this has been a special gift to myself each year. It slows me down and opens my eyes to the ways the Christmas story is very relevant to me. You'd be surprised how many lessons there are to be learned in such a short story. I don't look for them all, just one aspect of the story each year.
The first year I did this, I had two littles and one was in the NICU. I learned a lot about the frailty of a newborn babe that year. It was an awesome lesson in how Our Lord humbled Himself.
The second year I was very pregnant with #3 and my focus was Mary, and how she must have struggled--and yet with such joy and expectancy!
The third year we were moving to another state around Christmas time, and identified with the itinerant shepherds herding their little sheep. There were so many mundane tasks that I HAD to concentrate on that year, and yet the announcement came to them first. That year I felt so very small, and God so very big.
The fourth year I had an unidentified allergy and threw up for three weeks straight in December. I was so very hungry but could not eat. That year the aspect that stood out to me was that Jesus is the Bread. That same year at Christmas Mass Father spoke on this very topic saying that Bethlehem means "House of Bread".
There have been several other examples (right now too personal for me to share). I hope this helps in some way. ..
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Servant2theKing
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 1:56pm | IP Logged
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Like Michelle, I have learned so much about the true meaning of Christmas by practicing the kind of wise counsel she shared ..."Ask the Lord to open the eyes and ears of your heart this season to hear His loving, teaching Voice".
One particularly difficult and painful Christmas, I was too emotionally fragile to do anything except give our Precious Lord the gift of my fragility and nothingness. I even wrote Him a little note to that effect, wrapped it in a tiny golden cardboard jewelry box and placed it in the creche in church....That Christmas I was blessed with a richer and deeper understanding that Mary herself hands us the ChristChild each and every time we receive Him in Holy Communion. From that experience I have come to see more and more that the real joy and meaning of Christmas is not so much in the trimmings and the celebrations, but in our hearts!
I am currently writing out the lessons from Writing Can Help Book 5, Spiritual Crib (from CHC), for our youngest to copy. The lessons in it are taken from "Devotions in Preparation for the Coming of the Christchild, and at the Crib, From Christmas to Purification". Two lessons which stand out..."Invite the shepherds to adore our new born King. Imitate their watchfulness. Be mindful that Christmas is important because Jesus will be born again in you. Jesus, teach me to love Thee above all things." and "Go to meet your Blessed Mother. Lead her to the manger of your heart and beg her to lay the Divine Infant in it. Shorten your chats and spend more time today thinking of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Come, dear Jesus, my heart longs for Thee."
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All for Christ, our Saviour and King, servant
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teachingmyown
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 6:34pm | IP Logged
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Cay, I could have written your post. I am right there with you and I have been for years.
Michelle and Servant, your responses were beautiful. Thank you.
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In Christ,
Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
Remembering Today
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kjohnson
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 7:22pm | IP Logged
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Cay, I'm right there with you. My husband forwarded me an email yesterday with the date of his company Christmas party and I immediately felt a huge burden of dread. Part of it is having to watch next month's calendar begin to fill up, when this month is just beginning. The other is knowing that this is the first time I've been to a company event at my husband's new place of business and I'm going to have to find some fancy maternity dress that is flattering enough to be seen among a bunch of executives. ...Yeah, like that's going to happen!
But I did come across a beautiful quote from St. Francis de Sales on a friend's blog. I thought it was applicable to these kind of situations.
From the Spiritual Diary of St. Francis de Sales:
"[If certain persons] do something with repugnance and weariness, they feel that they have not gained any merit. On the contrary, they have gained greater merit, for a single ounce of good performed while the soul is undergoing a period of spiritual darkness is worth more than one hundred pounds of good done with pleasure and satisfaction, because the first was performed with a stronger and purer love than the latter."
It was comforting for me to be reminded that there is special merit in doing things from which we receive no emotional consolations. So maybe the lesson of faith in this is not so much that we should feel sad that we are not feeling the joy of this season, but that God has given us the grace of a strong will to perform those things we'd rather not do, with or without the sweetness. That's what the process of purification is made of, and that is what the seasons of Advent and Christmas remind us. It is in giving freely that we receive. And giving out of our povety (in this case, a temporary poverty of spirit) is a greater offering than giving out of our abundance.
You're in my prayers, Cay. Please keep me in yours.
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In Christ,
Katherine
Wife to Doug and Mother of 6
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 8:06pm | IP Logged
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We schedule the 24th as decorating day.. I found not only does it help calm down things in my house for Advent.. but then all the Christmas decor is fresh and new and exciting (and I haven't spent a month telling little ones "no") on Christmas Day.. and the whole season of Christmas. DH will take the 24th off if necessary. Though we join in the community and put up outside lights sooner.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Sarah in SC
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 8:12pm | IP Logged
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This time last year I was seeing a fantastic Christian grief counselor to help me thru the loss of our baby boy at 20 weeks the previous June. The anniversary of my Dad's death is in November, so that was weighing heavily on me, too, even tho that happened about 2 years before, and it was about to be my second Christmas without my Mom. Needless to say, the holiday season was fast approaching, and I was soooo digging my heels in and being dragged towards it. I could picture myself sitting in the church in front of the creche sobbing my guts out, looking like a total idiot--but every time I entered the church, I went to pieces. The quiet, the memories...it was too much.
My visits with my grief counselor were on Thursday mornings, and very early in the morning. It took about 30 minutes to get to her office, so I would end up leaving in the dark, cold morning and having all that time to think. I began saying my rosary during that time, and for whatever reason, I can't ever remember the mysteries without a cheat sheet--except for the Joyful mysteries. So I just said those every morning.
About the second week of November, I was praying away and got to the Nativity. I was emotionally raw and completely empty. I just cried out from my heart, and surprised myself to hear me say, "Please, God, help me make this Christmas about YOUR son, and not mine!"
From that day on, I prayed that prayer. And I think that even now, I should just change that prayer to say "this day" instead of "this Christmas"--every day. But it was at that point that the vice around my heart, and the lump in my throat began to subside. It was so freeing.
So maybe that prayer would work for you, too? In any case, thanks for letting me emotionally vent all over your thread. 
I'll be praying "my" prayer...for all of us.
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Happy wife to Tom and mama to Mac, 12, Hannah, 8, Rosemary, 6, Luke, now 1! and the 9 little angels that Mary is rocking.....
"What good shall we then do with today?" --Benjamin Franklin
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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: Nov 09 2006 at 9:29am | IP Logged
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Thank you, friends.
I found true peace in each one of your replies. I also received the EWTN program schedule yesterday. I'm going to try to just "sit and be" for certain programs and hopefully find a little wisdom and inspiration along the way.
Not such an off combination actually... 
Incase anyone is interested...
I was excited to see a new program with Joanna Bogle. I have her book for the liturgical season and now she's on TV. 
Feasts and Seasons of the Church with Joanna Bogle airs Dec. 3, 10, 17, 24 at 5 PM and Dec. 7, 14, 21, 31 at 2:30 PM.
There lots more. For complete program schedules visit www.ewtn.com
__________________
Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks
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JennGM
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| Posted: Nov 09 2006 at 9:50am | IP Logged
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Cay Gibson wrote:
Incase anyone is interested...
I was excited to see a new program with Joanna Bogle. I have her book for the liturgical season and now she's on TV.
Feasts and Seasons of the Church with Joanna Bogle airs Dec. 3, 10, 17, 24 at 5 PM and Dec. 7, 14, 21, 31 at 2:30 PM.
There lots more. For complete program schedules visit www.ewtn.com |
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SOOO interested!!! Thanks, Cay! I'm such a fan, for years and year. After seeing her blog and biography I finally made the connection that she has no children, but a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews.
So silly, but for years when I was single, I wanted to write a book, but thought that the audience wouldn't be receptive because I didn't have the family experience under my belt. Now I can laugh at my insecurity -- look at how wonderful her work is!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: Nov 09 2006 at 11:07am | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
I'm such a fan, for years and year. After seeing her blog and biography I finally made the connection that she has no children, but a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews.
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I didn't know she had a blog. Thanks, Jenn.
The schedule reads:
"NEW! In this new Christmas series, host JOanna Bogle interweaves the cultural and historical traditions of Christmas, from Advent wreathes to Saints Days and plum pudding. (30 min.)"
The picture of her shows her in a kitchen setting.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: It's Inevitable...
