For me, this is the best Christmas season ever.

I watched a segment on a morning news show today, a piece about HowToSurviveChristmasAndGetItALLDone
WithoutStressingYourselfIntoDebtors'PrisonOrInsanity
AndDon'tForgetToBreathe!

I thought, "How sad what Christmas has become."

And immediately I recalled those Decembers. Ones where I collected the new GetItALLDoneInTime magazine articles and kept a notebook stuffed with lists (lists lists LISTS!) and shopped ALL the stores while sweating in my winter coat then feeling chilled outside in the parking lot (and once spending days in bed with chills and the electric blanket dialed to Broil Till Crispy.) And I remembered doing Christmas decorating I didn't want to do or didn't even really like because it appeared cluttered to my eyes. And getting all upset because Tom had to work Christmas Day and turning down invitations to spend it with other families because I preferred to sulk at my home pity party.

Well, anyway, that news story this morning brought it all back.

And fortunately all those days are so very far away from me now and this year I've gone to the other extreme--finally I had the right excuses to try Christmas Light (as opposed to Christmas Heavy).

Online Christmas gifts came right to my mailbox and all my trinket clutter is packed away (actually, I gave 90% of our Christmas decor to Naomi). I wrote Christmas cards in lamplight only until it stopped being fun, then packed them away. I'll send the rest with a letter, even, in January during my Peaceful Vacation.

Yes, I'm taking a Peaceful Vacation in January. By then I'll be sitting in my tiny four-room house where I'll play at decorating and making it cozy. I'll gaze out the window a lot, lean back my head on the couch and watch scandalous amounts of tv (most likely) and forget that I ever stepped into Computer Land. I'm going to recuperate from this past year of changes and extreme up-in-the-air-ness and it's gonna be one awesome, soothing vacation, indeed.

You must know when to say when. You must know yourself and what is best for you. You must be true to the voices of God and Grace inside you, especially when other voices chide that the world will end if you relax and plead with you to keep up with everybody--or else.

I can't wait for my vacation. Yet in the meantime? Today, for instance? I'm actually anticipating tackling our basement--packing away or flinging away the paraphernalia-gone-wild of our happy times here. And when Debra is looking forward to clearing out her deep, dark, ghastly basement, well, you can be positively positive that Grace is all over her.

You can be certain another miracle is about to happen.


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Need a peaceful place to go right this minute to spend some quiet downtime with God? Here's one of my favorite places to do that. (If you wish to hear music, turn up your sound.)