Relief

I don’t exactly remember when I realized that the twelve days of Christmas began on December 26th. I was well into my adulthood, not giving the 12 days much thought. The only thing I noted was that the twelve days before Christmas were highly stressful for me. As much as I loved the Christmas time, I was always aware of what went undone.

Relief arrived, unexpectedly, like a moment of enlightenment the day I realized that I had 12 full days after Christmas. Here I was, able  to do those small, ordinary and special things I had wanted to do but couldn’t manage. After all, we are all still working up until Christmas but many of us have a few extra days afterwards.

No-rush Days

All of a sudden I had time to sit and read the cards, digital or otherwise and I could reply. There was time to read, moodle, call my relatives and talk as long as I wanted. I could start my gentle review of the past year to see what I wanted to continue, stop or change. Day dreaming and trying out a few new things: like the drawing pens or calligraphy set that were given to me. Taking time to watch a u-tube video sent from a reader. Going back and re-reading the sections in Oliver Burkeman’s book on “We Never Really Have Time.” Furthurmore, giving up the absurd notion that a better productivity method will solve the problem. Coming to grips with ultimate reality – we can’t do it all.

So, these days of no rushing, and breathing space are the gift of gifts. Room for spontaneity, playing with ideas on how to renew my Living Well with Illness programs, as an example.

I shut off my alarm clock this week and am fully rested for small projects that I enjoy doing. For the first time, I thought I would pick one thing each of the 12 days to hi-light in my notebook. Nothing planned; rather, a  surprise or something spontaneous.

Hi-lights of the first three days of Christmas

• Day 1: Reading The Shepherd, by Frederick Forsyth, to my 50 year old daughter. We love the story, and took 90 minutes, curled up on the couch with a coffee, and a big box of tissues. Ninety minutes of emotion about a pilot, in the North Sea, on Christmas Eve. In the midst of dense fog, he loses all radio communications, and we get to hear the story of what happened.
• Day 2: Through a series of fortunate events we got to meet the author of a beloved children’s book (adults love it too) Hana’s Suitcase. Now translated into 40 different languages, the author, Karen Levine, a prize winning radio producer with CBC, first did the book as a radio documentary. My grandson, was assigned the French translation, before Christmas and he proclaimed to me that it was the best book he had ever read. His one question to her: “why did you write this book?” He told me later, “my teacher will be surprised with the answer. Which simply goes to show how often our assumptions about others are wrong.
• Day 3: The wonderful scene of my son-in-law running partway down the street to get my garbage on the garbage truck. Here’s the story: I am house sitting across the street from my daughters and part of what is hoped for by our family friend is that I get her garbage out today. This is not a problem, except that in our city the norm is to add a day to the pick up schedule for holidays. So, I made an assumption instead of checking my notifications. When I looked out the window and saw the garbage truck moving on I sped to the garage, grabbed the garbage and my son in law ran relay to the truck. Poor guy was shoveling out his driveway and was therefore available, at that exact moment in time. My lucky moment for which I am grateful.

Don’t worry

Don’t worry, I will not be posting my personal Twelve Days of Christmas, but I did want to illustrate how important it is that each of us find small ways to notice and make meaning of ordinary moments. This is where we live and work. What strikes you will be different from me and that is the point. To make your own way. To find what grabs your attention and celebrate it. Writing things down appears to help us remember and make meaning.

Taking breaks, walks in nature, and finding small things that we love to do. Or taking notice of how we are helped by others, aren’t soft skills worth little. They are vital to our toxic stress reduction, which in turn improves our ability to ward off cognitive decline. (note that I will never use the word prevent) Our natural resources are also fortified to improve the quality of our everyday life on every level. Our mindbody is one, not two.

It is tempting, as the year draws to a close to make resolutions. I propose this year that you look back and note the things you are proud of. Things that mattered to you. No matter how small. There is no checklist of what we should have done and if presented with one, I suggest you ignore it. Each one of us gets to decide, by our own standards, how we measured up. Noone else can possibly know what that is. One of mine is that I flossed more consistently – you get the picture. A yearly review can be a useful thing to do, as long as you decline to use it, as a way to beat yourself up.

I will always and forever stand my ground that all of us are doing the best we can, with what we know, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And fortunately this does not mean perfectly. Nor does it mean to achieve someone else’s standards. Trust yourself. We all can do what we need to do, and when we need a hand we ask for it. If there is one thing I do know it’s that kindness is the touchstone. Sometimes kindness needs to say no. Oftentimes we miss the mark. However, we have unlimited moments, until our last one,  to try again and that is what counts.

Notes

1:) Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine. You can buy this through any online store or borrow it through the library.

2:) A reader of this blog sent an interesting video about leaves. For nature enthusiasts you can watch here. “This is the complete leaf sequence used in the accompanying short film LeafPresser. While collecting leaves, I conceived that the leaf shape of every single plant type I could find would fit somewhere into a continuous animated sequence of leaves if that sequence were expansive enough. If I didn’t have the perfect shape, it meant I just had to collect more leaves.”Music: Slyungda by jm france Images: Brett Foxwell

3:) All photos today taken by Rob Gaudet, while visiting Gabriola Island. Fortunately, on the west coast, even when the snow comes, it doesn’t last. Like a spring day. Thank you Rob.

4:) Ōmisoka  New Year’s Eve, is considered the second-most important day in Japanese tradition as it is the final day of the old year and the eve of New Year’s Day, the most important day of the year. Families gather on Ōmisoka for one last time in the old year to have a bowl of toshikoshi-
soba or toshikoshi-udon, a tradition based on eating the long noodles to cross over from one year to the next. At midnight, many visit shrines, or temples for Hatsumōde. Shinto shrines prepare amazake, a traditional, sweet fermented Japanese rice drink that dates back to the earliest era of recorded history in Japan. This drink is passed out to crowds and most Buddhist temples have large cast bells that are struck once for each of the 108 earthly desires believed to cause human suffering.(my Japanese readers are free to comment on errors or omissions here. )

5:) I can’t thank you all enough for spending part of your precious time meeting me here on this blog. Even though I haven’t met most of you, I have a sense of you and I like you all. I truly hope for the best, of what can be, for each and everyone of you. And I also wish for you, the courage, flexibility and adaptability for whatever comes your way. We never know what lies ahead, but we do know we can handle it. And most importantly I send you all an armload of joyful and meaningful moments. May you enter each day with a great sense of aliveness. “I woked up,” my granddaughter exclaimed, beaming from ear to ear, when she was two. May this be true for us all. Hugs all around, Trudy

Celebrations:

I am a lover of celebrations and traditions that still work. Just because we always did it is not a reason to keep doing it. Things change. There comes a time to reevaluate what we always did to see if it still means something. We may discover that certain customs, traditions, and ideas need to go or be modified.  Since they no longer reflect our present understanding, we can graciously and lovingly make changes. Furthurmore, we might initiate new ideas that will evolve into traditions.

There are many different celebrations in the month of December and I am curious and interested in them all. Here are a few that I know about. Please correct me in the comments if I have the details wrong.

Hanukkah

Also known as the Festival of Lights, begins on the 25^th of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar. This year that is the evening of Dec 18th and goes to Eve of Dec 26th. Celebrations revolve around lighting the menorah. On each of the holiday’s eight nights, another candle is added to the menorah after sundown. The ninth candle, called the shamash (“helper”), is used to light the others. Typically, blessings are recited and traditional Hanukkah foods such as potato pancakes (latkes) and jam-filled donuts (sufganiyot) are fried in oil. Other Hanukkah customs include playing with dreidels and exchanging gifts.

Winter solstice

Starting on December 21 and running through January 1, there are many who celebrate Yule, a holiday with over a millennium of history and traditions, much of which formed the basis of what many know today as Christmas traditions. Each year, Yule is set to start on the day of the winter solstice

This day is often recognized by Indigenous people as a day of celebration, ritual, and tradition.

For many Indigenous cultures, winter is a time to connect with the spirits of the past. The December solstice became a time to reflect on and thank their ancestors, share stories, honour their origins, and set intentions for themselves in preparation for the cold months ahead. It’s also a time to recognize everyone’s fundamental interconnectedness—with each other, nature, and the cosmos.

The Winter Solstice occurs on either December 20, 21, 22, or 23 in the Northern Hemisphere, where it is the shortest day of the year. People all over the world participate with festivals and celebrations. Long ago, people celebrated by lighting bonfires and candles to coax back the sun.

Kwanzaa

is celebrated December 26 through January 1. It is a holiday to commemorate African heritage, during which participants gather with family and friends to exchange gifts and to light a series of black, red, and green candles. These candles symbolize the seven basic values of African American family life: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

First celebrated in 1966, Kwanzaa is a seven-day holiday, with each day highlighting one of the Nguzo Saba — or “seven principles of African Heritage.” Celebrants also mark Kwanzaa with a kinara, a special candelabra with seven candles, one for each day.

Ōmisoka

New Year’s Eve, is considered the second-most important day in Japanese tradition and I am saving this for my end of year post.

 

My Tradition

My own tradition is Christmas and the centrepiece for me is the tree, highlighted by ornaments, each overflowing with meaning, candlelight, special international Christmas music, special foods, and always family and friends.

A newer tradition (30-year-old)  in my family is baking a variety of Austrian/Swiss cookies, one of which is called Basler Brunsli. This particular cookie has evolved into mythical proportions over the years and the first batch is baked on the day the tree goes up. I would suggest that Basler Brunsli’s baking in the kitchen is now the smell of Christmas, even more than the tree.

The Smell of Christmas

So, this year as I thought about what I could do for my son and daughter-in-law who live in Vancouver, it struck me that I should fly out for a long weekend and give them the smell of Christmas by making and baking the cookies in their kitchen. And that is exactly what happened. I flew to Vancouver last Thursday and returned to Ottawa Monday night. My original plan was to fly with a super cheap airline but their limited schedules didn’t work. And then I remembered the points I hadn’t used in three years.

The reservation was made; the flight was uneventful and the time with my Vancouver family exceeded all my expectations. The freezer was stocked; the smell of Christmas filled the house and we had fun together, even doing a test kitchen trying out two different brands and three different percentages of bittersweet chocolate to see which we liked best. There was no clear winner. We liked them all.

No one in my family, past or present would ever have done such a crazy thing: fly 4500KM to bake cookies, for the smell. (No matter how much you loved the recipients.) So I clearly broke with tradition, and I will always be grateful that I did. It is now one of my favourite things of 2022.

Jolabokaflod –A three-year tradition we adapted from Iceland

I think it is great to keep doing what works. But when it no longer works, do something different or add something new. We started this new tradition, adapted from the Icelandic custom of book giving, called Jolabokaflod. This Sunday night six of us will exchange books,  curl up in comfy chairs in front of the tree and the fire and read for the evening. Oops, I almost forgot that there will also be our favourite cookies, chocolates, a glass of wine or hot chocolate.  In Iceland this takes place on Christmas Eve, but in our family, this happens the Sunday before. I love the idea of intentionally setting aside an evening to exchange books and read together. I can’t think of a nicer tradition than this particular family gathering, with time to sit and read together in front of the tree.

The bottom line is we can let go of the elements of holidays that do not resonate and focus on the ones that do.

Please know that my heart goes out to those of you living with devastating news and grief. We know that life continues with both joys and sorrows with no regard for the season but this season can make those moments even more difficult.  Yet, I still hope for all of you that you will find joyful and loving, and kind moments in these last two weeks of 2022.

Notes

1:) Affection is the humblest love-it gives itself no airs. It lives with private things: soft slippers, old clothes, old jokes, the thump of a sleepy dog’s tail on the kitchen floor. The glory of affection is that it can unite those who are not “made for each other,” people who, if not put down by fate in the same household or community, would have nothing to do with one another. Affection broadens our minds: of all natural loves, it teaches us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who ‘happen to be there.’ Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.”  C S Lewis

2:) The Basler Brunsli’s are made without flour, or butter. Just nuts, chocolate, sugar, egg whites and spices. However, they sit on the counter for three hours before going in the oven. They look pretty ordinary but the taste and smell are Christmas. Thanks to Rob and Allison for all the dishes they washed as I took over their kitchen and the beautiful dinners and music they orchestrated. Unforgettable.

3:) Finally, I will sign off with much gratitude and a funny but true saying to keep my cold weather complaints in check. Actually, I have nothing to complain about, yet, as this year has been unseasonably mild. Although, there are rumors of a big snowfall on Friday. “If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in life but still the same amount of snow.” (not sure who said this)  All my warmest wishes, Trudy