Hitting the Pause Button

So it is another holiday season and the rush began on Black Friday even if you didn't venture out that day.  By now you are feeling the sense of anticipation if not urgency.  But what if this Christmas it is different?  What if you made a decision not to be caught up in it all and to focus on something deeper?

Last night my wife was on the phone with the inlaws of our son sharing some joy about the holidays and making plans to meet.  While she was gone I turned the love seat around and made it face the Christmas tree up close, turned on some classical Christmas music, poured a couple of glasses of wine and turned down the lights.  Then I just say there and waited for my wife Julie.  Soon she came around the corner and said, awwwwwww and took her place next to me and we just sat there and talked.  Much like you might do when sitting around a fire we held the moment.

The last three weeks was pretty hectic and not because of the holidays, but because the book that has been in my heart was finished.  I had been writing in every spare moment.  Julie would come home and ask how it was going and I would tell her take a break, then go back at it.  She was an angel to share me with a book, but she was excited too.  It is about hitting the pause button in our lives to take a moment and decide what is important.  Instead of being carried about by the demands of job and family, to focus and evaluate, then strategize new plans.

Now that the writing was complete, I wanted to live the message by showing her once again how much I loved her and to think about this holiday.  So the warm and caring moment framed by the light of a Christmas tree did exactly what it was intended to do.

This year there is still time to think about how you will celebrate the holidays.  If you wanted to make this one more special then ever, what would you do?  Would you write a letter to those you hold dear expressing your love?  Would you plan the gathering of family and friends to be one of sharing?  How about singing together or playing games?  We have brought out bingo and played it with the entire family and winners got to pick from a basket of small gifts that were simple little toys.  I can remember one year the group making sure that everyone had won and realized one of the grandkids had yet to win.  Suddenly without planning or direction the room was determined that she would win.  No one else called out bingo, we looked over the little seven year old's head and made sure she won too.

This Christmas, hit the pause button.  Think in terms not of what you always do, but what could you do different that would be so meaningful?  Did you always put the tree in one corner, put in another.  Play with it, have fun with it, most of all let the holidays be a true reflection of what you want it to be.  And live it.