t’s not what you think.  This isn’t about one of those tacky Christmas sweaters.  Although I do have a lovely one.  I take it out once each year and wear it proudly.  But that’s not what this is about.

In early October, when Christmas seemed so far away and it felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for its arrival, I found a knitting pattern for a beautiful sweater.  I thought it would look great on our daughter, Kaitlyn.  I showed her the pattern, and together we visited a local yarn shop to choose a colour she’d like. 

A person should really read a pattern carefully before committing to it.  I knew I would have my hands full as soon as I sat down to ‘relax’ and knit.  Partly, it was that the pattern isn’t written in the most user-friendly way.  Partly, it was that the darker colour wool we had chosen makes the stitches a bit more difficult to see.  But mostly it is the front and back are each made up of five panels.  Each panel has its own design, and each has a pattern that repeats after certain number of rows – each of these is different of course!  The sleeves, I’m discovering this week, have these same challenges.

I’d love to report that once I was able to make some sense of it and write out the panel instructions in a way I could follow, it was smooth sailing.  But it’s not nice to lie, and especially not at Christmas.  Let’s just say I’ve become pretty good friends with the lady at the shop where I bought the wool.  I’ve had to stop in twice for her to help me take out hours, days really, of work.  I know how to knit backward to fix a mistake, but in these two instances on this sweater, I didn’t notice the mistake for several evenings.  In a pattern with so many cable stitches, the taking out takes longer than the putting in, so I opted to ask for some help.  Otherwise, in the one instance, it would have taken me about ten evenings of knitting to knit backward, then another ten to get back to where I was.

Even I wondered how I had missed my mistake to begin with.  How didn’t I catch it as I was going?

It wasn’t until I held the work in front of me, spreading the stitches out on the needle as best I could, that my eye caught the problem.  I had mistakenly knit two stitches normally, instead of putting them on a cable needle and carrying them behind the other stitches.  There are 144 stitches on one row.  I had done about thirty rows before seeing my mistake.  There were only two stitches out of place.  TWO.

So, I did what I think any self-respecting knitter would do.  I tried to convince myself no one would notice.  Then I asked Jim his opinion.  What could he say?  Then I knit a couple more rows to see if the mistake would become even less obvious with more distance between me and it.  Then I set my work aside for a couple of days and started on one of the sleeves.  Maybe I was hoping the knitting elves would come in the night and repair my mistake.  Finally, I knew.  Even if no one else would see the mistake, I would know it was there. 

The truth is, I do think someone else might have noticed it.  I was picturing Kaitlyn standing in line at a nice coffee shop waiting to place her order, and the customer behind her looking at her beautiful sweater, thinking something looked off.  Even if they couldn’t quite locate the exact scene of the accident, their eyes would not feel settled.

There is something about our eyes and our brains that love order.  A pattern relaxes our brain.  When there is something off in a pattern, our brain whirls and whirls until it can sort it out.   

As I’ve now finished the front and back, and just begun on one of the sleeves (which I’ve already discovered are not going to be simple) I’ve been thinking about how this sweater relates to Christmas.

We’re all going to be ‘knitting a Christmas sweater’ this week.  We’ll be weaving together family and traditions in hopes of creating warm, comfortable, meaningful, beautiful memories to wrap around those we celebrate with.  I have no doubt we’ll be following a pattern to the best of our ability.  We’ll do things we’ve done in the past; we’ll make familiar foods and play familiar games.  And yet, without doubt, we’re going to miss a stitch or two.  There will be moments when things don’t turn out exactly as we want or expect or even plan. 

The best we can hope to do is what any good knitter would do.

They would notice the mistake and decide if anyone else will notice or care.  If the answer is no, getting on with celebrating will be in order.  If, however, these little out-of-place stitches are going to be noticed and remembered every time the sweater is brought out and worn, it might be a great new tradition to go back and fix them.  It could happen though, that the mistake becomes something worth weaving into the story of our Christmas, something everyone can laugh about or have fun with.  Sometimes these little mistakes are the beginnings of wonderful new memories.  Sometimes we should even dye them a wild colour and really bring them to life.

I doubt I’ll finish Kaitlyn’s sweater by Christmas.  It’s ok.  I have the front and back done.  Maybe she wants a Christmas vest.  No matter what, this won’t be what we remember most about this Christmas.  We’re going to treasure just being together.  Last year, this wasn’t possible.  So, this year, I’m going to cherish our time with Kaitlyn and her family.  I want to lock in memories of the magic of the day as seen through three-year-old Ben’s eyes.  And to treasure the sight of little Andy doing his half-creep, half army crawl, over to the tree to see the bright lights.  How lucky are we to be able to be part of Kaitlyn and Matt’s young family and to watch them knitting their own beautiful Christmas traditions, while at the same time wearing the cozy sweaters of our past, mistakes and all, knitted in for extra warmth.

Have a most wonderful Christmas.  You’ll be too busy knitting next weekend to read, so I’ll see you in the New Year.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What pattern am I knitting?’
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to focus more on the warmth and memories, and less on the details and missed stitches.

It’s December.  In fact, it’s well into December now.  In just a couple of weeks, Santa will have come and gone, the gifts will have been opened, the gift paper recycled, and our bellies will have been filled.

I was away for the past couple of weeks. I had the fortune of spending a few days working with the leaders, Board of Directors, and service users, of a women’s shelter in Ontario.  During my time there, one full day was spent talking with, and especially listening to, women who have accessed this shelter and those residing in Second Stage Housing.  As they make plans for independent living, Second Stage housing programs provide housing and supports for women who have left abusive relationships.

The personal stories of these women are more than most of us can imagine.  These women have literally fled for their lives.  Thanks to these programs, they now sit in a place of tentative promise.  Promise of safety, emotional support, and security with food and housing.  For now, they told me, they feel like they are home.

As we talked, they gave me suggestions for changes in the system they have had to navigate.  My task is to relay their ideas and reflections to the Board of Directors, the Executive Director, and the Leadership Team so they can be considered as we create the new Strategic Plan for this organization in the new year. 

It's a privilege to be trusted with not only their stories, but with their ideas, suggestions, and dreams.  Many of these women’s voices have not been listened to and most have not had their voices valued.

At the same time I carried out this work, I worked on a Leadership Review for another Shelter.  There were more stories to hear, more feedback to receive and the challenge of putting it all together into a practical, accurate document.

In our second week there, Jim and I embarked upon our usual whirlwind tour of Southern Ontario.  Our timing was perfect for so many things.  We celebrated my mom’s eighty-ninth birthday, with a gathering of not all, but many of my siblings.  I was able to accompany Jim’s mom, now ninety-two, to her doctors visit where she completed a cognitive functioning test.  She’s noticed her memory slipping and wanted to make sure it was not something more than just age-related memory loss.  It surprised no one to find out there is absolutely nothing wrong with her memory.  As the doctor said, you are not perfect, but you are really good. We had most incredible visits with a few treasured friends and spent time with my brother, Daniel, who I miss not having nearby here.

As we flew home, I had time to ponder not only the work I’d completed, and the wonderful visits we’d had, (not to mention the report I had yet to write), but I also pondered gifts.  Gifts we handed out along our route, gifts I had yet to purchase, the gift of safety I’d witnessed in the Shelters, the gift of family and friends, the gift of giving, and the gift of receiving. 

I’m not an easy person to buy a gift for.  I suppose most of us aren’t.  We are lucky to live in a world where most of our wants don’t get dusty on our shelves.  When we want a book, we get it, when new music comes out, we download it, when new fashion graces magazines, we order it.  It makes for a nice life, but it’s a challenge for others who might want to leave a gift under the tree for us.

What I really want for Christmas is a box.  I’d love for it to be decorated beautifully.  It doesn’t need to be a particular size.  It just needs to have room for my memories.  I have so many precious memories from this year.  I wish for a box that can hold them all.  I want to be able to take them out and look at them, feel them and remember them.  I want to remember the first time I laid eyes on our precious new grandson, Andy.  And I want to remember his beautiful two-toothed smile of late.  I want to remember all my Gramma days with Ben, and our camping trips together, my incredible Tuesday hikes in the mountains with Brenda, Jim’s and my adventures, big and small, my summer bike ride with Greg, and our family ride on my Birthday.  I want to remember my conversations with Kaitlyn, and our time spent together.  I want to be able to remember exactly how it felt cycling up the incredible hills of the Cabot Trail with my brother.  I want to remember the things told to me by the women I met at the shelter, so I never take my life for granted.

As I write this, I realize this one box will not be enough.  I want another gift.  Another box.  This one can be empty. It will hold the space for all the memories I hope to make in this next year.  I’ll keep this box in plain sight, reminding me I hold the power to fill it any way I wish. 

As the busyness of the Season washes over us, and we rush about attending to all the things on our list, may we each take time to make a few little memories, and add them to our carefully decorated boxes.  At the end of it all, I can’t think of any better gift than a box filled with our precious memories.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What memory am I adding to my box?’
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to create your best memories.

This week, I’m working with an organization providing safety, shelter and resources for women affected by domestic violence.  I’d been wondering what to do about my blog when my hiking friend, Brenda, told me her favourite blog of mine was the one I wrote about backpacks.  I originally wrote it on September 4, 2016.  Most of you have likely not read it.  I hope you’ll forgive this re-purposed, yet very fitting-for-the-experience-I’m-having-this-week, blog.  I’ll be back next week with some original content.  Please enjoy.

This week hundreds of thousands of Canadian children will make their way back to school.  Thousands of teachers, including our daughter and son-in-law, Kaitlyn and Matt, will do the same.  Many of the children will be wearing a backpack, bringing to and from school their possessions.  Anyone who has gone to school can almost hear the sighs of relief when those students arrive home and are able to take off their packs.

Last week our son, Greg and his new wife Cara completed their honeymoon-style canoe trip.  Parts of it involved portaging and they too had to wear backpacks to carry their possessions.  They were talking about how great it felt when they were able to lay their backpacks down at the end of each portage.

I didn’t have a backpack when I was a student but I sure do remember the great feeling of laying down my pile of books and other possessions when I arrived home.  What a relief.

In the case of students, mostly their backpacks are filled with books, newsletters, lunches, sweaters, and extra shoes.  In the case of canoeists, the backpacks contain sleeping bags, food and first aid kits.  All these things are easy to lay down. 
When I was a teacher, I always imagined that the children brought other things to school with them in their backpacks.  I imagined that they brought their hopes and dreams.  These would likely be easy to carry.  I imagined they brought their worries and fears.  These no doubt were heavier.  I also imagined they brought the invisible things that had happened in their homes in the hours before school began each day.  For some students these invisible things would remove some of their weight, making their packs seems lighter; for others it would add an immeasurable load.  These invisible items are much harder to lay down when the backpack is taken off.

In my classroom, before I started every single class, I would stand at the front of my classroom, quietly smiling at the students, and wondering to myself, “I wonder what each of these students has brought with them today?”  It was never my goal to add to the weight of their imaginary load; it was always my goal to decrease it.  I wanted them to feel like my classroom was a place they could remove their heavy load.

I don’t stand in a classroom and have this thought anymore.  This week though, it has dawned on me that this should be a thought I have every time I pick up the phone, answer the door, buy groceries, attend a meeting, meet a friend, drive my car or simply go about my daily life.

Every person we meet in this world is carrying around their own invisible backpack.  We cannot see inside it, but we can certainly imagine the possible contents.  Each of us carries our hopes and dreams, our disappointments and failures, our fears and rejections.  Each of us also has the power to influence the contents of the backpacks of others.  We can add to the burden of weight by our criticism, exclusion, and thoughtlessness.

We can also lighten the load of our fellow travellers by adding kindness, inclusion, encouragement and thoughtfulness.  Each of our little actions either adds to or lessens the weight of the packs that are carried by those we come into contact with.  We can make our presence be a place where people are safe to take off their packs completely.

Some travellers have become adept at hiding the fact that they carry a backpack.  We should not be fooled by this.  There is no one on this earth who does not carry their memories, fears, hopes and dreams.

I am lucky enough to know a few people who have homes where I can visit and feel perfectly safe taking off my backpack.  These homes are like a haven.  I am hoping that my home is a place like this for others.

This week my challenge for you is to take a few seconds, each time you meet someone, to ask yourself, “I wonder what this person is carrying in their backpack today?”
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with individuals, corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and in conducting Leadership Reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn to lighten the load of backpacks.