Clearly, the holiday rush consumed me this year. I have not posted in an embarrassingly long time. I found the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to just fly by this year. Between buying Christmas presents, baking Christmas cookies, hosting our annual holiday party, and sending out Christmas cards, I found myself pretty booked.
But there is a reason why I commit myself to all these holiday activities every year; I love them. I love trying to find the perfect present to give. While I may have dropped the ball a bit on some family members, Nate was overjoyed at his new Star Wars legos and his sister was happy with her new dress up station. I love baking cookies - cut outs (though I cheated this year and started out with a baking mix for the dough), rum balls, and (most people's favorite) cake balls. I certainly enjoy eating all of them and I love sharing them to spread holiday cheer. I love entertaining and actually look forward to our holiday party all year. I generally put together a pretty tasty menu which includes some yummy savory dishes and always some sort of champagne punch. It ends up being basically an open house in which friends I love visit throughout the day and celebrate just being together. This year's festivities ended with me giving an impromptu harp concert of Christmas carols which I miraculously managed to practice this year. With too little time to send out paper cards this year, I went for the more ecofriendly/ time and money-saving option by sending them out electronically. Unable to arrange for a sitter or plan something more intricate, we rang in the new year on our couch over some champagne.
All in all, I really enjoyed the holiday season. But I did have this feeling that I just wasn't quite on top of everything. Part of it stemmed from the constant sleep deprivation we suffer since my 4-year-old has been waking up nightly (Willa sleeps better than her older brother lately). Part of it stemmed from the unrealistic expectations I tend to set for myself. I am not much for new years resolutions. No one seems to keep them and if you want to change your life, you should - no matter of the day in the calendar. But here's what I aspire to for the new year: a more peaceful outlook.
Life with two children is almost by definition chaotic. And that chaos is fine, as long as you aren't constantly fighting it. I prefer an ordered life with everything in its place. Every task accomplished ahead of time, every outcome preplanned. I need to find a way to accept the entropy of life and deal with it the best I can. I don't think this means that I need to sacrifice things that give me joy - entertaining, harp playing, writing. But I do need to set more realistic ambitions for myself. I need to find peace in an imperfectly ordered world, where life is loud and messy. Luckily, I am blessed with the key ingredient to cultivating peace: love.
Here's to peace and love for everyone in 2016. Happy New Year!
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