Holiday Hush

All right, I confess--I tend to get a bit overwhelmed by the holiday season. As beautiful as the month of December is, all the purchasing of presents & wanting to make others feel happy & dearly loved can sometimes leave me bedraggled. I mean, does it really matter if my gravy's lumpy or I don't tie ribbons particularly well? Probably not! Like most of you, what matters most to me is that my family & friends are healthy & happy. So this year, I had a radical thought: what if the best gift I could give to others is ME? A sincere heart & joyful spirit who surrounds others with peace & kindness? Who loves others for their authentic selves--not for what they can do for me or provide under a Christmas tree? Yet to do that, I realized I needed to first find that peace & authenticity within myself. So rather than running around like crazy trying to make everything "perfect" this holiday season (& God knows, I'm guilty of that in years past!), I decided to take time out to truly appreciate the simple joys of December & to allow a hush to settle into my bones.  

For me, this means stopping long enough on a ski slope in Colorado recently to notice how the clouds look like Angels over the mountain tops. When I lifted my eyes, honestly, I could almost hear them singing! And I wondered if this wasn't just mental fancy on my part--if there really IS something in the universe that rejoices when we take time out to notice the beauty & wonder all around us.  

And a few evenings ago, while I was out jogging during a light snowfall, at one point, I simply had to stop, clutch at my heart, and gasp. Why? Because as the snow filtered through the sky, the setting sun shone through the spiraling flakes, making each one flicker gold. The sight was so heart-stoppingly beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. Even though I tried to capture it here (rather badly) on film, nature's poetry still left its mark on my soul in the form of a deep peace. And that silence, that sacred hush, is the true gift that I think December can bring. Within its quiet chill are moments that allow us to pause & appreciate something I can't even quite articulate--but that I believe has something to do with the eternal inside the temporal. A beauty that is at once fleeting & yet so piercing that it can endure in our hearts for all time. 

If we can relax long enough to feel that "sacred hush" during the holiday season, and let it replenish our souls, then we actually have more to offer other people! We have the gift of ourselves that can truly love & cherish those around us.  So as you make your way through this happy, hectic, harried, & hustle & bustle month, I hope you can also give yourself the opportunity to take long walks, to gaze at the sky, to allow snowflakes to fall on your tongue or notice shapes in the ice & patterns in the snow. In other words, during the midst of the holiday rush, don't forget the hush. Because long after the lights come down & the decorative trees have been turned into kindle, it may well be that these quiet moments are what you remember most.

Like the sweet message from a precious child left for you in the snow . . . 

(Photo credit note: All images on my blog are either my own or were gleaned from pictures in the public domains of popular social networks like tumblr, facebook or pinterest. If you own the copyright to any of these images & do NOT want them used publicly, please contact me & I will take them down immediately! : )