Adrian Savage has a great piece over at Lifehack about how our marketing-reinforced ideals of what Christmas ought to be like sets us up for a more stressful and disappointed Christmas. You might want to check out. I think most people can relate to it.
The idea of skipping the usual Christmas crap this year has been echoed by our family and friends alike. Even more amazing is that they either came to the same desire by themselves or didn’t need much convincing. It’s almost like some of them wanted to suggest it, couldn’t bring themselves to do it, but breathed a sigh of relief when the notion was suggested by others.
Cindy and I had decided in the fall that we were skipping Christmas this year. 2005 was a bad year, and that’s putting it mildly. It’s more like it sucked big donkey penis. 2005 just doesn’t deserve a Christmas. We’re only buying things for the kids.
But we are looking forward to 2006.
In doing so, a couple of paragraphs from the article stood out to me.
Christmas is a wonderful time of year to practice forgiveness, and especially to forgive yourself. The old year is coming to an end. As it dies, forgive yourself for all the times in this year you destroyed your own hopes and expectations; for the ways you let yourself down; for behaving badly; for messing up. Forgive others for all the ways they disappointed you. Forgive life itself for whatever bad things it brought. Let it all go with the year that is passing. And when the New Year comes, let your first resolution be to stop setting yourself and others so many unreal goals and expectations based on perfection.
* * *Walk into the New Year with an open mind and a hopeful attitude. Let go of all the baggage you?re carrying. Simply drop it and walk away. All the possibilities of the coming twelve months are before you, so pause on the threshold and enjoy a few moments of anticipation. Then step confidently into your future. While you can?t make that future better than it will be, you can always hope for the best. Who knows? This year you may be right. It sure beats facing the future full of grim expectation of misery and disappointment.
As a start to the new year, come January 1st, we won’t be observing the tradition of eating black-eyed peas either. We’ve been doing it for years, and every year those bastards betray us.
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http://yogajournal.com/wisdom/515_2.cfm
This was a good article in Yoga Journal about starting your own holiday traditions. I liked the one about sending out New Year’s cards to friends and family.
I think it’s a great way to put the crappy year behind us and look forward to the birth of a new and better year.
I like that idea, too. Maybe that’s what we’ll do.
It’s nice when you have two people that can mutually agree to ‘skip’ Christmas and actually stick to it. Generally I’ve found that two people will agree but one breaks down. Maybe it’s because that person feels guilty, wants to surprise the other person, wants to give and not receive…Even agreeing to skip can be a bit hard. And, what about people who just suddenly turn up with a gift? I’ve already had a new friend give me a gift worth a few dollars. It is a lovely gesture, but now obligation sets in. I can barely remember to get gifts fo people when it’s expected…much less try to find something cheap and useful for this girl (besides the fact it will seem I’m only gift-responding). It’s all a bit too complicated if you ask me.
Funny how I find no happiness whatsoever in the whole gift scenerio when I could think of nothing better as a kid.
I’m so sorry.
Why? It’s not your fault, K. Your year has been crappy, too.
I just hate that it spilled over into so many lives. Just need to get drunk and stay that way thru the new year.