Presence for the Holidays

This year, I took a different approach to my holiday preparations and it was an incredibly freeing experience.

Usually I spend the holiday season, slaving over Christmas preparations, much to the chagrin of my family who just wants my time. This year, I decide to practice ‘presence for the holidays’. I let go of many of the stressful traditions I had adopted, in favour of more fun, family-oriented traditions.

So, I decided to let the kids become more involved in the festive preparations; partly because they are older now but mainly because I decided to let go of my need to control. In the past, we would let the children decorate a small part of the tree with their ornaments and then the perfectionist in me would finish the rest myself, moving around most the kids’ decorations to suit my image of the perfect tree. Truth be told…this usually ended with me feeling frustrated that I had to finish the tree while I still had so many other things left to do. Yet, I didn’t want to relinquish the control. This year, more by fluke than anything else, was different.

As usual, I separated all the ornaments so the kids could put their special ones on the tree. Once those were up, my husband just kept decorating with the kids help. For a brief moment, I felt anxiety over the perceived loss of control. However, I quickly began to enjoy the help and time we were spending together. This ‘letting go’ experience was the first of many throughout the holiday season.

Christmas Eve was always my special time with my father. Every year since my dad passed away, we would spend the days leading up to Christmas Eve slaving away in the kitchen cooking traditional Ukrainian foods and would talk about Grandpa with our kids, who never really got to know him. The problem was that while the adults stressed over hand making perogies, borscht, and other dishes, our kids were left to play by themselves or be babysat by the TV. So again, I began to think about being ‘present for the holidays’. Does that mean we threw away all our traditions? Of course not! We just altered them. We still spent time talking about Grandpa and honoured his memory, but instead of cooking for days, we went to our local bakery and bought perogies for dinner. This gave us the time to play games and spend Christmas Eve Day as a family with no stress.

We didn’t change all of our Christmas traditions. I just became choosier about where I put my time. We still made and decorated gingerbread cookies to bring to holiday parties. A tradition that, while time consuming and at times stressful, brings joy to the whole family. I did however, try to change my attitude around the whole process. Instead of focusing on the final outcome or how many I had left to complete, I tried to focus my energy on enjoying the time with my family and improving my artistic techniques.

I know that these small changes might seem like nothing, but it was the shift in my thinking that really made the difference. I had to let go of the need for control. This has been a lifelong process and I still have a long way to go. However, the joy and freedom I felt after letting go and embracing the true meaning of the holidays was amazing! I will definitely be practicing ‘presence for the holidays’ moving forward.

We all shine, so share the light!