All of a sudden it’s December and Christmas is coming toward us like “a low hanging branch on a fast moving horse’! My schedule has been particularly full this last month and will remain so for the next three weeks as I work with clients and finish up my work with Education Students from St. Mary’s University. On Monday, I realized just how tight things were when I was going over my week in my head. I got to Thursday and thought, ‘Wow, that seems like a lot’. So I opened my old fashioned pen and paper calendar to November, where I had carefully written every appointment. Because November ended on a Wednesday, Thursday, December 1st was also on this double page and it was there that I had written my schedule for December 1st. When I flipped the page to the actual December calendar I saw that I had also written my schedule for December 1st on the ‘December’ double page. The problem was that I had fully booked myself for December 1st twice! The appointments on the ‘November’ pages were completely different than the ones on the ‘December’ pages. I guess that I had needed an extra day to get everything squeezed in so I just invented a new day! Luckily, a few phone calls and emails later, I had rescheduled and was back to a typical seven day week!
This little faux pas on my part was a good reminder to me of the craziness that can be found in December. Each of us is trying to juggle many things as we head into the holiday season. There are gifts to be bought, homes to be decorated, baking and cooking to be done, parties to host, concerts to attend, and cards to be written. And of course this can be on top of working outside of or inside the home. It’s not hard to imagine why this season of love often brings out less than loving feelings!
I have been feeling a bit behind on my Christmas ‘to do list’ this year. My strategy for managing this was to open my calendar and to schedule in some time in the evening, or between client appointments, for cleaning, cooking, shopping etc. But somewhere this week, and for the life of me I cannot remember where at the time of my writing, I read this: “I don’t even care that I arrived here. I could have arrived anywhere – it was the journey that changed my life.”
This comment has made me rethink my ‘calendar’ strategy. I do still think that I need a list to remind me of everything I want to have done before we start driving to the airport to pick up our guests. However, I have been doing some serious thinking about how I will approach my list. In other words, who will I ‘be’ as I am busy ‘doing’? What do I want my journey to Christmas to look like?
As you know, this way of thinking is not new for me so it has been easy for me to come up with a few simple changes that I can make that will make my journey to Christmas more joyful:
I have chosen to play Christmas music as I drive. I have chosen to stop what I am doing when a family member or friend calls to talk so that I can be fully present with them. I have chosen to take time to decorate a bit earlier so that I have a physical reminder of what all the hustle is about. I have chosen to sign up to dance at three Senior’s Centres with our dance group (one hour each), even though this will tighten my schedule in other places. I have chosen to take an evening walk through the lights at Spruce Meadows. I have chosen to buy a gift that is a ‘memory maker’ for our kids and their spouses. (This means that we will be doing something together that hopefully will become a treasured memory). I have chosen to treat all sales people with respect. I have chosen to buy gifts that I am happy to give. Jim and I have chosen to return to a tradition we had when we were first married and could not afford many decorations – we used to make a new one each year. We still hang these on our tree and they give us incredible joy as we recall the year we made them. This year we collected pine cones while we were on our bike trip in BC and we have decided to use them to make our decoration for this year. We have chosen to go to Banff on Sunday with our friend Jan, to be part of an outside concert at dusk. I have chosen to make our home a welcoming place. I have chosen to be grateful.
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What does my journey to Christmas look like?’ Ask it often, and listen for the answers.
Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.
This little faux pas on my part was a good reminder to me of the craziness that can be found in December. Each of us is trying to juggle many things as we head into the holiday season. There are gifts to be bought, homes to be decorated, baking and cooking to be done, parties to host, concerts to attend, and cards to be written. And of course this can be on top of working outside of or inside the home. It’s not hard to imagine why this season of love often brings out less than loving feelings!
I have been feeling a bit behind on my Christmas ‘to do list’ this year. My strategy for managing this was to open my calendar and to schedule in some time in the evening, or between client appointments, for cleaning, cooking, shopping etc. But somewhere this week, and for the life of me I cannot remember where at the time of my writing, I read this: “I don’t even care that I arrived here. I could have arrived anywhere – it was the journey that changed my life.”
This comment has made me rethink my ‘calendar’ strategy. I do still think that I need a list to remind me of everything I want to have done before we start driving to the airport to pick up our guests. However, I have been doing some serious thinking about how I will approach my list. In other words, who will I ‘be’ as I am busy ‘doing’? What do I want my journey to Christmas to look like?
As you know, this way of thinking is not new for me so it has been easy for me to come up with a few simple changes that I can make that will make my journey to Christmas more joyful:
I have chosen to play Christmas music as I drive. I have chosen to stop what I am doing when a family member or friend calls to talk so that I can be fully present with them. I have chosen to take time to decorate a bit earlier so that I have a physical reminder of what all the hustle is about. I have chosen to sign up to dance at three Senior’s Centres with our dance group (one hour each), even though this will tighten my schedule in other places. I have chosen to take an evening walk through the lights at Spruce Meadows. I have chosen to buy a gift that is a ‘memory maker’ for our kids and their spouses. (This means that we will be doing something together that hopefully will become a treasured memory). I have chosen to treat all sales people with respect. I have chosen to buy gifts that I am happy to give. Jim and I have chosen to return to a tradition we had when we were first married and could not afford many decorations – we used to make a new one each year. We still hang these on our tree and they give us incredible joy as we recall the year we made them. This year we collected pine cones while we were on our bike trip in BC and we have decided to use them to make our decoration for this year. We have chosen to go to Banff on Sunday with our friend Jan, to be part of an outside concert at dusk. I have chosen to make our home a welcoming place. I have chosen to be grateful.
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What does my journey to Christmas look like?’ Ask it often, and listen for the answers.
Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.
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