Christmas

I had a great Christmas vacation. I spent it lounging around, reading Harry Potter, going through my belongings in the attic and weeding out things to throw away, hanging out with my family and friends, eating good food, shredding papers, buying presents, playing games, and partaking of the Christmas Spirit! I was the only one home with my parents for most of the time, and it was nice to spend time with them. We laughed a lot!

I have been thinking a lot about what makes Christmas so special. I've reflected on Christ's birth, time spent with family, traditions, and gifts. These things seemed like the most important things of the season. And I just finished a book called "Simplify Your Christmas" by Elaine St. James, that gave me some ideas about how I could really focus on these important things by cutting out the other unnecessary parts of the season that have taken over our culture. I found some really good suggestions that I plan on implementing in my own Christmases in the future. They include buying fewer presents, buying consumable presents so that presents don't clutter the receiver's life, reducing decorations, and not having a Christmas tree (it's not very green to be cutting down a tree every year and then throwing it into a landfill). They also include doing more service, taking time to meditate, choosing a symbol that your family can focus on, and creating traditions that don't add stress to your life. I loved it, and would recommend it.