Holiday Wishes for You

Here is my wish for you this holiday season, my dear one.

Stop trying to make things look good and concentrate instead on letting things feel good.

Feeling good is the priority.

There is no need to wrap the perfect present, cook the perfect turkey, send the most adorable Holiday card.  There is no need to beat yourself up when something didn’t go as planned, when your family embarrasses you, when you don’t respond to your work emails, when you don’t get through everything on your list to clean/fix/beautify.

Those are just things — tiny things in the story of this holiday season.

I’m sending wishes for the grace to be present to your life and to open to your heart to the special magic of this time of year.

I’m sending wishes to release a little control and concern about impressing your whomever.  I’m sending wishes to not worry about how things “look” to others.

I’m sending wishes instead to make this a holiday season that feels good, whether feeling good is about cozying up under blankets, baking cookies and watching holiday movies or feeling good is eating Chinese food, going to yoga, and deep cleaning your closets.  Whether feeling good is donating every gift that you don’t love to charity or feeling good is taking walks alone to take a breather from the in-laws.

I want you to know the difference between “this looks gorgeous on the surface” to “this feels connected/loving/nourishing on the inside.”

To me, it’s about moments — moments of connection, moments of laughter, moments of presence.

Feeling good for me this holiday season is about allowing myself a break from social media (I took all apps off my phone and stored my laptop in the closet), to not getting wrapped up in ways I think it should be, to letting myself enjoy this hiatus from the hustle and bustle our crazy last month of new site/Holiday Council/moving.  Feeling good is also about getting outside every day, drinking a lot of water, and spending a lot of time snuggling.

My favorite moments of this holiday season have nothing to do with outer trappings and very little to do with the way I “imagine” things should be.  

It’s a good reminder that these wishes I have for you are really the wishes I have for myself!

Special moments thus far:

• Gathering around the television eating a homemade meal, watching the Seahawks kick the 49ers ass, trying our best not to cheer too loudly and wake Max up.  This is an odd one for me, because I don’t really care about football and hate when families eat around the tv.
• Being surrounded by two of my favorite people while our tiny humans “played” together.
• Sharing a meal with our lovely friends in their new Seattle home and though the surroundings were out of this world and the food/wine/coffee incredible — it was the talk of intentions and wishes and life cravings that really made my heart happy.
• Sitting down with Ken to do our Holiday Council work.  While I still cringe hearing my own voice come out of the Bose speakers and wanted to constantly think about what I could have done/said/explained better, I did my very best to just enjoy the writing, the company, and not giggle too much when my manly husband filled out his incredibly colorful and feminine Stratejoy worksheets.
• Taking Max for his first walk in the snow and anticipating all special memories we are going to make at this tiny cabin over the course of his childhood.
• Watching an incredible amount of shooting stars (and making an incredible amount of wishes) from the warmth of a hot tub, in the middle of the rolling hills outside of our new home of San Luis Obispo.

Happy Holidays, gorgeous.

May your heart be happy, your home warm, and your load light over the next week.  Sending you so much love and joy from my tiny corner of the Internet.

XOXO

Image via Stylemepretty.