Author’s Note: This was a post I wrote this time last year. Yesterday, as my family and I picked out our 2023 tree, I realized I had never published this post. Here is it. It still holds.

Giving and Gracious.
Giving and Gracious.

That’s what I want to be.

To talk about how I got here, I really have to start with where I was.

Yesterday my family went to the Christmas tree lot. It’s one of my favorite days of the year. My husband is an absolute Fraser Fir kind of guy and I’m an absolute “whichever one catches my eye” kinda gal.

Usually, he placates me and we go with what I found. Maybe, probably, because one year I had a little* meltdown about him moving through the lot too fast and selecting a tree before I had any time to browse. And by browse, I mean take in the experience of the Christmas tree lot–you know, my favorite day of the year.

Well, yesterday I was looking for something new. A type of tree I’ve never purchased before. Brighter. Greener. Long needles. Less fir-y (which is really to say, less like what I usually go for). My husband entertained my desire to look down every row. He had one daughter, I had the other. I was a bit disappointed to not see the type of tree I wanted, but quickly shifted to focus on what was there.

After a few ups and downs and skirting to the side while other families carried off their finds, I finally found a good one–one that caught my eye and caused pause. I walked to the adjacent aisle and saw my husband had done the same. Actually, it was my daughter who found the tree. She was delighted! I looked it up and down and walked back over to eye my original one. You know, just to compare. It was then I thought, “I don’t need this. I don’t need to find the ‘perfect’ tree this year.” Truthfully, it was beginning to feel a lot like unneeded pressure.

Truthfully, it was beginning to feel a lot like unneeded pressure.

I realized what I actually wanted was to give my family the green light. To let them have the joy of picking. Let me daughter have her moment of selecting the family tree. But I returned to their aisle to find my husband looking at a new tree. A better tree. A “more solid” tree, in his words. I could see the disappointment on my daughter’s face. I felt it, too. I wanted her to have that moment. Yes, him, but mostly her.

Though, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to intervene. I figured it was just enough to let my husband feel the glee of selection. And ultimately I didn’t care. I let go of my expectation for the tree. I was going to pick out the wreath anyway.

That’s when he said she could pick out the wreath. Ugh! What?! I clenched my teeth a little. I wanted to pick out the wreath! That was my concession for allowing them to pick the tree! Which of course they didn’t know because yet again I stayed silent. I didn’t want to make it about me.

She picked out a nice wreath. One that was almost identical to what we picked out last year. A large fir with pine cones, berries, and a burlap and plaid bow.

But…

That’s not the wreath I wanted. It wasn’t the wreath my other daughter wanted either. In that moment, I couldn’t explain why I was so drawn to a different one–the bright green Salt Spring Island wreath with shiny red bow. By all accounts, the wreath my daughter picked out was my taste. But it was my taste last year. This year I felt drawn to this other variety. After closer inspection I realized the wreath we-wouldn’t-be-getting had the elements I was seeking. Brighter, greener, long needles**.

Still, I didn’t make a fuss. I didn’t want to make a fuss. I stayed silent night. But I felt that familiar pit in my stomach that said, “I didn’t get what I want.”

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When we got home it seemed I had lost a little of my Christmas spirit. I really wasn’t in the mood for decorating. It all felt like too much. And with a growing cold, I didn’t even have the energy. That low droll of inadequacy lingered all day and into the night. For a moment, I thought, Christmas will never be as good as when I was a child. And it hit me that what I was experiencing is what I’ve experienced for several years now: Christmas doesn’t feel like enough anymore. I’m waiting for magic to happen and quite frankly am tired of trying to create it myself.

I miss my family.

I miss the excitement.

I miss the wonder and surprise.

I miss the cold.

I miss the orange and cream colored lanterns that we placed in the windows of my childhood home.

I miss the antique Santa dish my mom would fill with M&Ms.

I miss that feeling that something bigger was happening around me.

And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the drinking***. Which, of course, I do hate to acknowledge and admit.

But in doing so, I uncovered what I really miss: the nostalgia for all things old. Instead, currently, I’m feeling the existential gloom of being a modern adult who misses their childhood, who misses when life was easier? (For the record, my 20s were not easy, but I think you get the point.) I miss when other people put the tasks on my plate and I just had to gobble them up. Instead, today, I have to make the lists and complete the lists. It’s no-more of someone handing me something I have to just finish. I have to create the whole damn thing. And that’s exhausting.

But in doing so, I uncovered what I really miss: the nostalgia for all things old.

This morning I sat in my usual chair. Journals splayed around me. I thought back to the text my friend sent me last night. About how she doesn’t want to be alone. I wasn’t sure what to say last night so I didn’t say much. Today new words came. “What’s today will not always be.” I shared them with her–because of that alone-ness she’s been feeling. I wanted to remind her this feeling, this state wasn’t permanent. I couldn’t help but see how those words tied to me, too.

And then I thought about them again: What’s today will not always be. And in that reread I read it a different way. I noticed how accurately it describes the present moment. How to redirect your focus from the time-away-from-now to back here. Right now. Because, soon, we won’t have these things either. You know, these children, this age. Maybe we won’t even have working fingers to type the messages we so crave to share. It’s all impermanent.

That’s when I realized what had been missing for me since the start of this month. God. Spirit. Giving. I had been so focused on me lately, particularly in sharing the news of my book, that I hadn’t been focused on who else I could serve. I was so intent on finding what I wanted in that Christmas tree lot that I wasn’t thinking about what I could give.

Gracious and Giving

Mantras have always worked wonders for me. And this one was no different. I knew as soon as the words formed that these were the keys forward. They unlocked something in me. They opened my heart from the tight grip of control I’d been holding and allowed me to see beyond myself. I thought of my neighbor who I haven’t spoken to in months. Busy schedules and busier days in between us. I thought how nice it would be to send her a tea invitation. I thought of my other neighbor–why, how nice it would be to invite her to my home for tea! I thought of my pregnant or recently postpartum lady friends who I haven’t seen in weeks (err months). I thought, “what could I give them?”

Time.
Attention.

Those things are in my control. Suddenly the thought of giving filled my heart. Wow, maybe this really is the Spirit of Giving. This is the power it holds! It seems so simple when you see the other side of it.

Giving and Gracious.
Giving and Gracious.

That’s what I want to be.

I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like tomorrow, but today it’s enough.

Happy Holidays. <3

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**A Cypress Variety (lol, I looked it up here)
***Almost four years sober, but holiday triggers can still get me.}