Joyeux Noël et/ou Joyeuses Fêtes !

Freshly baked Grasmere gingerbread to nibble on, holiday tunes to listen to and a quiet December 25th to savor with Norman and Nelle at home here in Bend at Le Papillon. Now that is my kind of Christmas Day. 🙂

To experience all of the seasonal gifts of the holidays is to leave our hearts open while setting aside expectations. Over the years, I have enjoyed Christmas in many different ways, with different people and in different places, so what makes this Christmas a special one in my own life journey is being able to bravely savor it in a way that nourishes both me and the community and people I love.

When we have the opportunity to have a special holiday that seems to hit all the right notes, we can never know if such an occasion will happen again, so knowing how to deeply savor becomes a skill we can be grateful to have, for we will always carry these beautiful memories with us.

For me, I am savoring Norman waking up to his stocking stuffed with gifts from Santa for the 15th time, and I extend gratitude to be able to have this moment with him alongside Nelle, who has been looking at her stocking for weeks eagerly curious to know what she can play with come Christmas morning.

More than anything, Christmas is a practice in savoring, and when we know how this skill works, we see our special moments such as the holidays appear seemingly in technicolor. Each snowflake that falls is miraculous. Each bite of the Crown Roast exquisite, and each smile of surprise a treasure. Not to wish for more, but to savor and appreciate what is, carrying that joy with us into the rest of our days.

After all, the holiday season encompasses far more than just one day, but rather weeks of festive cheer and giddiness for this once-a-year occasion that engulfs so much of the world in a “conspiracy of love” as American author Hamilton Wright Mabie coined. For myself, this year’s holidays have included sharing time with neighbors and friends for delicious gatherings, donning my ‘Santa hat’ and delivering baked goods, decorating the house, mailing holiday cards and gifts to friends and loved ones living afar and taking the pups on their annual Christmas stocking shopping trip to their favorite pet store, concluding with a quiet Christmas Day. The latter is a gift I gave myself. For me, and again, each of us will treasure different ways of celebrating, quiet is treasured and being able to savor having a warm cozy home shared with companions I adore with special, celebratory meals to devour after an outing amongst Mother Nature, this for me, is to feel I have hit the jackpot.

The holidays are less about one particular day and more about the way we choose to live every day of our lives. Yes, sometimes our life journey can be challenging and trying, but such momentary unwanted occasions only provide the opportunity to savor all the more the life we have consciously chosen to live every single day.

It has been my experience that the ‘big’ dates on the calendar, dates acknowledged by an entire culture, country or community, such occasions provide a momentary reflection of how our everyday lives are actually going. If our everydays are harried, our holidays will be exhausting. If we have been brave in carving out a life that sings, we will have bravely designed a holiday that we will love even if it is new or different from others or past holidays or traditions. If we feel alone in our daily life, we will still feel alone in a sea of family and friends who gather together. And if we are loving, our choices of how we engage and give will be loving as well. The beautiful aha we discover after learning how to truly savor, exercising bravery paired with being loving is that every holiday can be one we hold fondly in our memory upon its concluding no matter how different they might appear to an onlooker.

If we have been brave enough to cultivate a life that we love living in our everydays, then our holidays, our special days, will be a treat to savor as well, because the same ‘rules’ apply, just multiplied. And the outside world need not approve because when we tap into what we need, what we can give and what fills us with joy, we have found both peace within and extend that peace outward toward others as we acknowledge each person will celebrate in their own way, and undoubtedly, no two ways will be exactly alike.

On this day that is Christmas and this year it also the beginning of Hanukah, may your holidays be full of simple, small, large and grand moments to savor and treasure. From Norman, Nelle and I here in Bend, Oregon, at Le Papillon, Joyeuses Fêtes and thank you for stopping by TSLL.

My own living “gingerbread girl” in pup form, Nelle, has asked that we jaunt up to the mountain to play in the snow today, so I will definitely be obliging her wish. 🙂

Tomorrow welcomes the start of postings, 10 posts in all!, beginning with TSLL’s Favorite Books of 2024. Be sure to stop by each day through until the end of the year to see all of the favorite posts in nine different categories shared over the past twelve months. À demain !

~Learn more about TSLL’s Contentment Masterclass.