Healing Holidays

The new normal meets winter holidays.

Will surprising the relatives with a visit lead to exhilaration or simply to an door-step interrogation about my recent COVID exposure before deciding if I am allowed in the house?

Do I dare bring up vaccines at the dinner table?

To travel or not to travel?

What is the perfect designer face mask to gift to my significant other?

(And do such gifts follow the holiday fruitcake rule that says re-gifting is 100% cool?)

 

However you choose to answer the above, embrace this year’s break for what it is.

Not what it could have been.

Not how it used to be.

Not how it might be in the future.

Take the days off and a chance to slow down for the gift it is in this moment.

A few more questions naturally arise – take a moment to reflect on these, and even to jot down your thoughts.

What non-material gift do I need to give myself over these next weeks?

What am I needing to fill my cup at this moment?

In the first week of January, what would I be proud of to have done for myself over these last weeks of December?

What non-material gifts could I give to others?

With whom is a phone conversation long overdue?

 

My hope with this piece is simply to help all of us focus on deeper healing in this time. Yes, the malls and big box stores and Amazon try to sell us on superficial and instant gratification. But, I don’t expect that anything from those sources will be the answer to our healing.

Two fun ideas to leave you with, as you design your own winter break game-plan:

Gift and Run

We have started this tradition with some families here in Albuquerque. Wrap some gifts and show up at a busy shopping area and begin the “gift and run” with strangers. Find that stressed cashier or unexpecting family in the laundromat and present them with the gift. You can add “pay it forward” when they look at you in surprise or ask you what this is all about. Note – we have found that children are much better at “gift and run” than us adults. Kids don’t worry about rejection or violating others’ space like us adults. So let the little ones show you the way.

Unplug

Turn off your phone and other connections to the electronic universe for a few days or more. Sound frightening? If so, a good sign that this would be great for you. In my experience doing this for about 10 days each winter break, the first day without a phone does lead to some withdraw symptoms. Once that dissipates, life begins to slow. Your thoughts are no longer on text-speed, instagram-speed. They actually return to normal speed. You might even have to open a paper phone book and use a landline. But here is the real gift – it is not about what you have left behind, but more about what you might now do with your unplugged self. A long hike? A chat with grandmother? Baking something you have wanted to try for months?

May the next weeks bring you what you most need.

See you in ’22!

p.s. If you try either of the above, I would love to hear how they went for you!