…. but they do make me laugh sometimes!

In the last two days, I’ve come across three terrific observations on holiday music, movies and gift-giving.

Fold these observations into your Christmas preparations, but don’t let them dampen your spirit!  Laughter is good for the soul.

Yesterday I heard from several readers that they’d put out their buckets and were faithfully awaiting the blessings to fill it! 

 In Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas, we read:

A spiritual mentor and friend once confided to me her frustration with how people pray: “We come to God with our buckets saying, ‘Please fill these,’ and God wants to give us the ocean!” God will never be outdone in generosity and creativity. Yet, we try to decide what’s blessed for us, rather than letting God’s blessings fill us.

 Perhaps, when we pray, we’re thinking too small. In your quiet time today, place your bucket of concerns before God. Imagine God’s grace filling the bucket to overflowing, healing your concerns and bringing you peace of mind and heart. God is good. All is well.

My most memorable blessing for the day, though there were many along the way, came through my 7-year-old daughter, Katie.  She did something remarkable and unexpected last night. First of all, some background:  My husband has been out of town this week on business, so I got a taste of single parent life as I juggled feeding, clothing and taking my kids to activities all week with my own work demands.  My teenager Abby is used to my occasional evening meetings, but Katie still hates to see me go, especially during Christmastime.  I really try to minimize my time away, too, because I love being with them.  Last night was an exception, though.Our Christmas decorating this year has been done in small increments.  Most years we take a whole weekend and get the tree and all the inside decorations done, but this year we’ve had to break out our projects over the last 10 days or so.  Katie is excited to get it all done, so she called me during my meeting and asked if she could go ahead and hang ornaments on the tree.  (The lights and garland were already in place.) Feeling bad for leaving her with an undecorated tree, I gave her permission to get started and stay up until I got home from the meeting.  Her older sister was occupied with homework and her social life, so I knew Katie wouldn’t get much assistance from her.

When I arrived, the tree took my breath away!  Katie had not only placed nearly every ornament we possess on the tree, she grouped them together by themes.  It was a gorgeous site!  We snapped digital photos and sent them off to her dad right away.

Katie’s initiative was a blessing in so many ways.  As much as I love decorating the tree, I was even more delighted to have the project completed!    And, Katie has the wonderful sense of accomplishment and pride in a job well done and appreciated by her family.  Now, we all can enjoy our beautiful tree and feel the Christmas spirit more present in our home.

 This blessing came from a most unexpected direction for me.  While I was sad to be away from home and burdened by the unfinished tree facing me in the living room and feeling responsible to get it finished (my empty bucket),  my young child took on the task and finished it with great style and grace (now filled to overflowing!).  Come to think of it, that’s her middle name!

Today’s St. Louis Post Dispatch includes Maria’s op-ed column to help you answer your kids’ questions about Santa.

I’m with the Magi today, as described in Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28-30)  The Magi would have welcomed this word of encouragement from Jesus. Little did they know, as they journeyed to see the star, that the baby whose birth it proclaimed would indeed be the source of refreshment, the creator of the universe. 

We’re on a journey with the Magi these days. We come bearing gifts, setting out in haste, seeking the light.  As we waver under the burdens of our busy lives, let’s remember those desert wanderers centuries ago. While we may know who waits for us under the star, we’re searching for something new, too.

I have so much I want to accomplish, yet I don’t know where to begin.  This time of the year is filled with such possibilities, and I want to be energized by them and not overwhelmed with them. 

Maybe for today I can take some time to enjoy the season, rather than rushing onto the next thing that needs to be done.  I have a slight cold and sore throat, and the weather is particularly yucky outside.  But the forecast is for warmer temperatures today.  I’ll warm into the day, as well!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Today I am grateful for our warm home, and the forcast for snow later today.  Along with the music on the radio, snow will put me in the Christmas mood even more.

I am also grateful for the friends who encouraged me to write Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas, because I sure need it!  I’ve fallen behind in my daily blog, and now want to recommit to checking in with you everyday.  Over the last few days, I’ve suffered from the “feeling overwhelmed” blues.  Fortunately, after a wonderful talk with my husband, then another with my mastermind group, the fog has lifted and I have renewed confidence in the fact that all will get done and all will be well.

I love the story in today’s reflection on my daughter Katie’s final word on the existence of Santa:

The day of reckoning came. I’d dodged the issue long enough. As I prepared dinner one evening, Katie sat at the kitchen counter, stared straight into my eyes and asked: “Mom, is Santa real? Do you believe in Santa?” 

I took a deep breath and searched for the words my mother told me. “Well, Katie, Santa is love. Wherever you find people being good to one another at Christmastime, Santa is there.” I chose my words carefully—too slowly for my eager child. Impatient, she interrupted me and said, “Well, I believe in him.” She stared one second longer, emphasizing her point. I smiled, gazed back and said, “I believe in him, too.” Returning the smile, she hopped down and ran from the room. She had found her answer.

What we wil achieve in this life is intimately connected to how much we believe in ourselves and our ability to accomplish our goals.  For today, act “as if” you are the person you want to be.  You’ll be delighted at the results!

I’ve let a couple of days go by without a post on this daily blog. My weekend was such that I didn’t carve out the time to write on the computer, though I did continue my journal pages every morning.

Saturday night was a beautiful evening, where I celebrated Advent by Candlelight with the wonderful women of St. Peter’s Parish in St. Charles, Missouri.  This is the second event I’ve shared with them, as their keynote speaker.  The evening included prayer, delicious food and drink, and beautiful music.  In fact, the invitation to return was a big part of the reason why I got serious about writing Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas earlier this year.  I thought, perhaps, that if the women at St. Peter’s enjoyed my musings, then perhaps there’d be even more who would, too.  This has turned out to be the case.  So, thank you to Tiffany and Evelyn and the dear women of St. Peter’s Parish for affirming the idea and for making the event such a special evening for me.

Sunday started sunny, but winter storms moving through the midwest soon turned the day bitterly cold and rainy.  I’d planned to stay indoors and decorate, but my oldest daughter Abby asked me to take her to the mall after church.  At first I thought she wanted me to serve as the taxi service, but then it became clear that she intended to go with me.  Warmed by the thought that my teenage daughter actually wanted to spend time with me, I left the lighted village half assembled and made tracks for the mall with her.

It was worth it, for all the laughter we shared.  My favorite moment was when she tried on different winter scarves.  I looked around for a full-length mirror for her to see herself, but there wasn’t one near by.  She instantly pulled her cell phone from her pocket, struck a pose, held the camera at arm’s length and snapped her photo.  In the time it would have taken to find the store’s mirror, she snapped and pulled up her image and immediately assessed her scarf’s fashion-ability!  No go, she decided.  I laughed, delighted in her ingenuity and free yet decisive spirit.  The slog through the rain and the cold, not to mention setting aside my own plans, seemed small trade-offs for that moment of spontaneous fun with my daughter.

I continue to be grateful for music, my family, dear friends and my work.  I’m taking each day at a time, each with a long to-do list at the beginning, yet rich in other, unplanned ways, too.  So, some items on the list get pushed back a day or two.  When I kick myself for it, I just imagine that darling girl snapping a photo of herself at the mall.  Delighting in that, the decorations can wait!

Today I had a hard time coming up with my gratitude list.  Sometimes I think my items are too simple, too much of a given, to mention.  But that’s not how it works.  Goodness is present in the simplest of things, especially the things we take for granted.

This is the season for shopping and acquiring new things.  In Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas we read:

We have to be careful when it comes to new things. If we’re down, new stuff can cheer us up, but only temporarily. New things are fun, but let’s not trust in stuff to solve our problems. 

The real transformation comes when we can view what we already have with new eyes:  to see the inherent goodness in the people and circumstances of our lives, and to take that as the starting point for our world view.

So, today I’m doing some simple things, but maybe they’re not so simple after all.  The items on my gratitude list sustain me and give me joy–and isn’t that worth living for?

On my list today:

The love of my husband, my beautiful girls, my work.

Today in Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas, we read about the “Angels in the Outfield”, and consider the angels of Christmas, too:

The celestial allies help the Angels all the way to the big championship game. In the process Roger’s prayer is answered, though not in the way he had imagined. Angels herald this great season of love—from the Annunciation of Mary to the shepherds in the field. All the earth lighted by their glory, carrying a message from on high. Perhaps our own angels will make an appearance. As we pray for a special Christmas this year, may we be blessed with the grace to accept however our prayer is answered.

I started today still sad from yesterday, which ended on a cranky note for me. I had a good day, but by the end of the evening, fatigue and family issues got under my skin. My face and voice didn’t communicate the love and concern I have for my family members. So, today as I am reminded of God’s heavenly messengers, my heart takes hope in knowing God is near, sees all, and loves us just the same. Today, I intend to love my family, God’s messengers in my life, as they deserve to be loved. I will see and affirm their goodness!

In Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas, we read:

The more connected we are [to God], the more our presence and efforts will give witness to God’s love.

Today I’m grateful for the wonderful women in my life.

Today I intend to be present in every moment.

Today I’ll be with women in all generations around me:  my mom, my daughters, my friends.  I’ll go to the dentist, put lights up on our deck railing, and write.

At about 3:30 a.m., I was awakened in the night and had a tough time falling back to sleep.  It’s not often that this happens, but not unusual, either.  When it does, if I wake up too much, my mind gets carried away with worry.

I mulled over the things I needed to do later in the day and dissected a few past situations that I could have handled better.  My anxiety grew to a restless level.  Then I remembered what I’ve learned in recent years about the power of gratitude. 

I took a few deep breaths and directed my thoughts to things for which I am grateful.  I also said some simple words of praise to God for his awesome goodness to me.  As each thought came to mind, I felt a deep peace and calm rise from within me.  My body relaxed, and I drifted off to sleep. 

Today’s reflection from Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas invited me to come up with some new items for the gratitude list.  So, I included “falling back to sleep this morning.”  Now, as I look back over the day, I can also add “the day’s activities going much more smoothly than I feared in the dark, wee hours of the morning.”  I’ve experienced it before, and it’s good to be reminded again:  when I place my life in the context of God’s abundant goodness, there’s no room for anxiety or worry.