Christmas traditions

i have a lot of dreams around Christmas traditions, but haven’t been very good at bringing these to life.
here’s some ideas i want to implement.

• i really want to make an advent calendar! i hope to get to it this year… maybe not get it done, but get to it! (find a pattern, get supplies, start on it…) in each pocket there could be a treat & a small family activity/service to do that day.
• also, forrest’s family always makes wreaths together. we’ve done that together, & we really enjoy that. this year we got a bunch of holly from my sister meg, & then we drove along the nebo loop & got more evergreen to add. (this picture is last year’s wreath.)
• i want to sing a Christmas hymn & read a scripture or a Christmas story before or over dinner every night in december. (we’d have to have dinner every night!) i heard of this last year & really liked the idea, but wanted to pick out all the scriptures beforehand… & nothing every happened. last night we sang “joy to the world” together in bed. 🙂 …and i tried to remember & quote the scripture about shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night…
• another thing we did last year that i loved was go to provo’s “many lands” store & buy a bunch of fun treats like german marzipan & finnish licorice to go in our stockings.
• i also want to try to go to the nutcracker & a messiah sing-in.

what family traditions are you trying to create of preserve?

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bali

i think dreams are important pieces of who we are. when no one knows what secret dreams we harbor inside ourselves, they become stagnant. sharing these gives them more power to not just become reality, but shape who we are, even if they never happen. i’ve always believed the proverb (13:12) “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”

do some of your dreams need a good airing?

circa 2001 i was new in portland still, & feeling a bit awash. i’m not sure if i was back in school again or not. i do remember feeling like i wasn’t sure what the heck i was doing with my life. this feeling was both depressing & liberating. i felt like i could do anything i wanted. i started reading books on bali. i heard it was really cheap to live there. i thought about it constantly. i imagined living in a one-room grass hut on the beach, eating nothing but rice & fish, shaving my head, & living in a bikini & sarong. i think i was planning on getting dreads before i shaved my head.

there.  see?  that’s part of me!  i’m the kind of person who dreams of escaping to bali!

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