Holiday Guides

Peace on Earth

by Nicole Basham -- Being Savvy Austin

The hardest part about the holidays for me this year is being "present" during our family time. It seems nearly impossible to sit down for a meal or to help my almost-three-year old son with an activity without shifting my attention, and instead thinking about the gifts I need to make & send, how I still need to get that flu shot, or that I MUST renew my drivers license before our holiday trip.

But there is something simply magical about this time of year. I can't remember a time my son has been so happy, so full of laughter, so loving. The day after Thanksgiving, my husband and I had planned a road trip with our son to a farm where he could pet horses and goats, do a corn maze, and go on a hayride. Unfortunately, the day was cold and rainy (rare for Austin!), we had no backup plans, and most of what we could think to do was closed for the holiday weekend. And being Black Friday, the last place we wanted to go was any retail establishment.

Suddenly, I realized we could get out our holiday decorations! My husband and I took them down from the shelf to shrieks of excitement from my son. This, incidentally, is from the kid who still keeps asking me to bring the Halloween decorations back from the garage so he can play with the glow-in-the-dark skeletons.

I couldn't help but smile when Will took the two singing stuffed snowmen out of the box and insisted on playing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Frosty the Snowman" - in unison - for the next half hour. Oh, and somehow the stuffed Easter Bunny that sung some 50s "hip hop" song had been relegated to the same box, and so he became part of the ensemble.

In between the second and 400th playing of "Frosty the Snowman", I took out the decorations and placed them on our guest bed. Some were recent - the salt dough ornament Will made at a playdate last year, an ornament with his photo inside a cookie cutter from a friend - and some brought back memories from before he was born, which seems like a different lifetime.

When the novelty of the snowmen wore off (only to re-emerge at 6:45 the next morning), Will sized up the decorations. We rediscovered Christmas books. We tried on the reindeer headband. We talked about stockings. We baked chocolate chip cookies.

We were jolly. We were happy. We were together.

We were in our house, our home. Far away from people getting trampled at Wal-Mart, far away from atrocities happening across the globe, far away from worrying about jobs, money...all of it.

So whenever I can, I simply sit and drink it in, breathing in the smell of fragrant pine needles, watching the sparkle in my son's eyes, and trying to imprint these moments in my mind - so that they last forever.

Being Savvy Holidays

The Wild Tangle of Grasses

Nov

Tue

If there was a single photo that could capture my feelings and thoughts about the past year, this would be it. It reminds me to keep looking toward the brightness of the light, even if I am caught in the wild tangle of grasses.

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