Christmas-ing With Kids is Magical + Exhausting

I love every single thing about Christmas. All the hoopla. Tree, music, lights, traditions, baking, togetherness, decorating. And baby Jesus, of course. But this year is sort of kicking my a*ss. And it’s only December 20th. Christmasing with kids is magical but exhausting. Now you’ve got to add the Santa hat on top of all the others. The gifting part is really the only part that I am not into. We do not need more stuff. Fewer, better things. That’s the mantra around here. The purchasing, wrapping, put-it-together-ing, hiding. The nightly moving of the elf. And this year there is the heavy conversation of do you gather with family? Do you travel? Is it okay to sit down and have a meal together? Who arranged for the covid tests? Did you quarantine? It’s a lot. But still my heart and soul feels the love and magic of this time of year. I’m giving myself completely to the chaos of a thousand days of no school, schedule free small people, too much sugar, too little sleep and Christmas cards lost in the mail. To dressing up with no where to go and date night happening in our backyard. But there’s something else I’m doing, too.

I’m planning for 2021. Zooming out and looking at the big picture of the year and what I want it to be about. What I want it to mean. For me. For my family.

I’ve felt reactive lately. Like the day has me by the tail. Even my morning routine which has always been dependable has vanished. Sienna God bless her is a morning girl. At 6:30am rather than meditating and writing out my intentions for the day I’m talking about why we aren’t getting a hamster and digging around for crayons and a coloring book. Once the kids are up their needs determine which way I blow. Constant pivoting and rearranging. Yes, there is always a general routine and structure (wake up, eat, get dressed, blah, blah), but it’s day to day stuff. Minutia. Not the big stuff that vibrates inside of me and has been (forever) screaming at me for attention. BIG: how am I going to use my life in service to others? What is my own personal dharma? My sacred duty, my Reason, my Thing. SMALL (but important nonetheless): do we have anything for dinner? I need to call the plumber, our sink is leaking. Is it a 3 day weekend? Is it my day for pick-up? (and the list goes on, forever). My day can so easily get filled with minutia that when I lay my head on the pillow at night I wonder what I actually accomplished that fed the bigger stuff. Sometimes it’s nothing. And if enough “nothing” days pile on top of each other when I don’t make time for reflecting, planning and acting on the big stuff, I start to get really resentful about the small stuff. The minutia feels like its turning my brain to mush. I get irritable and cranky. My world gets small. I act reactively and nit picky. But when I commit time and energy and action that feeds my dharma. My oh my its night and day. Serious miracles happen. And it balances out the minutia. I don’t get cranky about the endless laundry and dishes and making baby food because I’ve spent hours of uninterrupted time flexing my creativity muscle. Of acting upon the bigger questions of life and putting energy behind bringing them to life. It may happen in tiny bits here and there, but those bits add up. But that will not happen without a plan. Doing it without a plan has shown me that. Time doesn’t just miraculously open up, I’ve got to ink it in and hold myself accountable. Even though so much else grabs for our attention. Decide: is that stuff worth my attention? By doing it, will I be contributing to the greater vision and purpose for my life? Moving the needle in the direction that inspires me? Mostly the answer is No. If I stop doing (so much of) the stuff that is filler, that is just drifting along, then space opens up for the bigger stuff. It is my work. There is enough filler stuff in life to keep us occupied, forever. And it feels like it hunts me down on the daily. Like my day is spent simultaneously running from and indulging in filler. Put the big rocks in first (they can be scary and heavy but they are Who You Are). Then let the sand and gravel (the fluff, the filler, the hats) fall in around it.

Steven Pressfield writes about this push and pull in Do The Work:

…..the universe is not indifferent; it is actively hostile. This is true.

But behind every law of nature stands an equal and opposite law. The universe is also actively benevolent.

The opposite of Resistance (filler stuff, sand + gravel) is Assistance (big rocks, support for your dharma).

A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur (or human), are pouring love into the work; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope. This is serious juju. The universe responds to this. It has no choice. Your work-in-progress produces its own gravitational field, created by your will and attention. This field attracts alike-spirited entities into its orbit.

The un-indifferent universe has stepped in to counter Resistance. It has introduced a positive opposing force.

Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality.

2021 is going to be about the big rocks. I’m going to put pencil to paper and map it out. Make plans. Plant those big, meaningful things first, rather than giving them my leftover time and energy (which turns out is nothing, there are no leftovers). I’ll share it all with you and hope that you do the same. Because this portal has proven to be one of my greatest places of learning. A place where I can put it out there and ask the universe to rally around me. To convert dreams into reality. How amazing is that?