Traditions

Can traditions distort my perspective?

Does Christmas have to be on Christmas Day?

 I have a struggle with this. As I have fond memories of waking on Christmas morning. The day spent with family.

As with everything else the traditional Christmas idea is changing. Life is happening at almost too fast of a pace. Family is getting older and extended families growing. These dynamics are all part of the change and how our Christmas and ideas of Christmas may be shaped differently than in the past.

This year excitement was setting in as we were waiting for our daughter’s return for the holidays. Then my husband’s schedule is posted; working Christmas Day.  My heart sunk. He would only be having four days off in the three weeks our daughter would be home. This also would have him working on his family’s Christmas and on New Year’s Day. Now, we had to break this news to our daughter.

 This past fall in our ladies study we have been talking about giving thanks in all things. This was going to be the test. Do I practice this giving thanks or not? I decided to give thanks, to see the good in whatever I could. We decided as a family we would make the best of it all.

We have learnt over this past year to be creative. I reminded our daughter of this and how blessed we were for the gift of creativity.

It’s then that the miracles started to happen. There was a change. My husband didn’t have to work Christmas Day - he only had to go in for a couple of hours. He was able to enjoy some time with his family for our Christmas celebration.

We had been faced with many challenges over the holiday season.

The season that taught me that sometimes we have to let go of the “traditions”.

At the close of this past season we can say as a family how blessed we are.  Our daughter has returned back to school and our three weeks together have been a hoot! I felt like we had partied all the time (and we did that) and also enjoyed some quiet “time out” as a family.

The miracles happened as I first gave “thanks”. Then I had to let some traditions go-which would have changed the story. My perspective had to change in order for the real miracle to happen.

(But a little part of me wishes we could all be like parts of Europe; where everything is closed down. It’s a time to be celebrating and be with family. Oh dear, what would we ever do if that happened-changing our perspective!)

It’s all about HIS coming to us anyway!

Blessings for 2014!!!