photo by Lauren Markham and Felicia Chernesky
The holidays are known for tidings of great joy—and excess.
Everything we do starts off as an idea wrapped in good intentions that more often than not ends up crammed into an overcrowded closet…
So what is it that we’re after—the diamantine star or the dazzling bauble?
Asking this question is another way of reminding myself to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Mark Twain is credited with writing to a friend: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
When we hurry we tend to overdo, so instead of rushing, it seems wiser to take our time to buy-bake-run-write less, and make what we produce matter more.
Of course, with the frantic pace a pre-holiday week takes, this advice is more easily given than lived.
But every year ends with a new beginning—a chance to revise our expectations, renew our commitments to our dreams, and rewrite our futures.
And what could be more blessedly winter wonderful than that?