Skip to main content

Christmas & Perspectives

Okay, I'm just going to say it- Christmas really isn't my favourite time of the year!

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that my husband intensely dislikes this time of the year. He doesn't have very fond memories of Christmas from his childhood and so it's really poisoned his attitude.

As a result, most years Christmas is merely a blip on the calendar, and then we keep plowing through- basically ignoring the whole thing insofar as we can.

Having said that, I decided that this year I wanted to do things differently. To slow down and put some thought into WHY we even do this in the first place.

I started by getting an Advent book and candles- so that we'd have a daily reading to do. The story is quite interesting (and very gruesome at times), but as we're working our way through it- I'm realizing it's the right book to help us learn and remember.

Then, I decided that we'd scale back the school work (which wasn't too difficult because we seem to get so little of it done on any given day anyway) and do more fun things as a family. Baking together, decorating the house, decorating the baking, art stuff, etc.

However, there's a problem with all that- the inevitable fighting that goes along with it.

The bickering is kind of driving me (and definitely my husband) insane.

I keep trying to remind myself (and my husband) that they aren't going to remember any of the fighting (although he isn't so sure)- but that they WILL remember the time spent together doing all these things.

It's like all those times when I go out with the kids and I think they're acting like little monsters- the fighting, bickering, yelling and screaming (both theirs and mine) make for such a miserable day that I question my sanity and remind myself NOT to EVER do that again!

Then we get home and all of a sudden they're thanking me for such an amazing day and that they had so much fun, etc.!

WHAT?!?!?!? Didn't we just spend the same day together at the same place?!??!?!!

You're kidding, right?

But they aren't. They're totally serious.

They aren't remembering all the times I got upset with them for not behaving- they're remembering that I took them somewhere that they liked and they enjoyed it.

Philippians 3:12-16 (NIV) says, "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.".

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead... I haven't been very good at this lately, but it's exactly what my kids find so natural to do. Seize the joy of the moment and ignore the gunk.

I think it's also a bigger picture for my life right now- on so many levels!

I've been really discouraged lately and have had a hard time getting back up again- which can get you feeling even more down about things.

Maybe pressing on needs to be my motto for a while...

Keeping it real, by the grace of God...
Tammy


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Great Expectations....

Expectations. I have come to realize that I have a love-hate relationship with 'Expectations'. Before something happens you have this dream of what it's going to look like. And, the longer you have to wait the bigger the expectations become (at least for me it's seemed that way). Expectations: being given a picture and told to replicate it in cake form. I have grand ideas of what all my cake attempts should look like (think professional perfection)- but the reality of my experience doesn't always translate the same way. Thankfully this one turned out really well! Then you hit reality. You finally get what you've been waiting/wanting/dreaming for all that time. But, it's different than what you were expecting it to be/look like. Not that it's bad or anything (although sometimes it can be). It's just different than what you dreamt it would be. My life seems to be just that- hoping and praying for things to happen only to have reality ...

Filling the Wrong Bucket

I didn't cave. I also should have just stayed off of Facebook, but I didn't cave. Last summer I chose NOT send my kids to summer camp- even though, seemingly, ALL their friends were going. The same week. All of them. Well, not really, of course. But honestly, with Facebook status updates coming in fast and furiously- it really did seem like it. And I wondered, 'Am I a bad mom because I didn't send my kids to summer camp with their friends?' At one point, I seriously thought about calling up the camp (after the week had started) and seeing if I couldn't somehow manage to get them in anyway. I let the thought pass- and didn't cave. But I still feel a tinge of guilt about it and I'm dreading the decision about this summer already. Fast forward a few more months- to February 7, 2014 to be exact. Pretty much anyone with even the slightest interest in Lego will know what that date means. The release of their first full-length feature movie....

When Things are Broken...

One of the main reasons that I haven't been writing over the past year (other than being really busy with cadets and my grandmother's ongoing history project....) is that things have been pretty crappy around here. I haven't really been feeling like I'm getting anywhere with anything- so how could I put a great spin on something that just seems to suck? In the past when I'd tried blogging (or journaling), it always seemed like I was just whining and complaining about the same things over and over again. And nobody really wants to hear about that, so then I just don't write. People have enough garbage going on in their own lives that they don't need to listen to someone else whine about theirs. But is that really where we're at? I know that there has been some backlash against this with the 'Bad Mommy' type memoirs and blogs, however, that's not really what I'm talking about. I think it's sometimes about being real and vulner...