December 8th - Comfort And Joy

Okay, quick update on yesterday.

I'm feeling much better, thank you.

The wave has finally passed.

It's hard to explain depression,

but when the wave finally leaves

it's the difference between night and day.

I was blind, but now I see.

I was deaf, but now I can hear.

All desire was gone, and then life floods back through my veins

as if I was dead and have been brought back to life.

That is what it feels like.

So yeah, today is a good day.

It's always good when you feel alive.

 And what a wonderful day for today's topic.

"Gloom we have always with us,

a rank and sturdy weed,

but joy requires tending."

-Barbara Holland 

Start Quote

This is the week that women's shoulder's begin to droop 

as their list of holiday "should do's" becomes as 

long and heavy as Jacob Marley's chains.

[Cards, gifts, wrapping, sending, trees, cooking, baking, parties...]

By next week, unless a Power greater than ourselves restores us to sanity, 

women will be dropping in their tracks.

Not surprisingly, the Christmas holidays are the height of the flu season...

In case anyone hasn't noticed, 

women are the ones who "do" Christmas, 

performing miracles on demand...

The celebration of Christmas as we know it today,

with its whirl of festivity, decorations, lavish gifts,

parties, and family-centered traditinos,

was a creation of middle-class Victorians in both 

England and the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.

Victorian women, who were full-time homebodies, 

began "doing" Christmas in July.

However, in the final two decades of the twentieth century,

women have been doing lots of other things while we're doing Christmas.

Which is why we end up doing ourselves in every December.

For many women, this is the season of misery and angst:

tears, tantrums, screaming, yelling, hustle, bustle, 

cash conflicts, royal-pain relations, and holiday humbug.

Wouldn't the real Christmas miracle be is we slowed down long enough to remember the reason for the season, so that our holiday celebrations became authentic and meaningful?

So be of good cheer.

Be not frazzled, frustrated, nor frantic, 

for I bring you tidings of comfort and joy.

If you do Christmas at your house, 

you can choose to do it your way.

Whatever that way might be.

You can consciously decide to be

 happy, loving, fulfilled, generous, peaceful, 

contented, spiritual, joyous, calm, festive, 

and emotionally connected to the important people 

in your life for the holidays this year.

Or you can, unconsciously,

choose to be a wreck.

Today, realize that you can't do everything.

Not all at once. Not in the next sixteen days.

Not at all. Period.

Now, recognize that one of the reasons Christmas pasts 

probably didn't live up to your expectations is because 

you've tried to do too much, too perfectly.

Look at that list.

Choose to let only what you love best about the holidays remain. 

Cross out two more "musts."

Now there's time for gazing out the window at gently falling snow,

delighting in the sounds of bells and joyful music, 

savoring the sweet aromas of hot cider, roast turkey, and gingerbread,

sipping hot chocolate...reading a holiday story each night at dusk, 

basking in a fire crackling on the hearth...

"I do hope your Christmas has...a little touch of Eternity in among the rush and pitter patter and all," mystic Evelyn Underhill recommends. "It always seems such a mixing of this world and the next - but that, after all, is the idea!"

End Quote

Christmas is what you make it.

So choose comfort, choose joy.

***

Gratitude Journal

***

1) Good friends. When am I not grateful for my friends? After our miserable attempt at a play date/dinner date last night we tried again this afternoon with much more success. She came over and help me do like 8 loads of laundry while our kids played. I'm so grateful for her and her son.

2) The sound of the washing machine and dryer.

3) Clean clothes. We literally had no clean clothes left, it was bad.

4) It's the weekend!

5) The wave is gone, I can breathe, I actually felt joy today...I thank God that the waves of depression don't last forever, and for all those who help me ride them.