Looking back and forward...

The new clothes and gadgets have all been put away (at least they’ve been moved up to the boy’s rooms), wrapping paper and boxes are crammed in the recycling bin, and the sugar cookies and gingerbread and chocolates and the leftovers from Christmas day have been thrown away. After a whirlwind month of decorating and shopping and wrapping and delivering, of attending concerts, parties, and performances, Christmas is over, just like that—come and gone in the blink of an eye. And while normally I feel a bit relieved to leave Christmas and all its work behind and I look forward to the New Year and taking down the Christmas decorations, this year I’m still lingering over Christmas, waiting to move on just yet.


In that spirit, tonight I’m making a couple of lists: Things I will Do the Same Next Christmas, Things I Will Do Next Christmas That I Didn’t Do This Christmas, and What I Learned This Christmas. Here goes:

Things I Will Do the Same Next Christmas:


Not send out 100 Christmas cards or try to reciprocate every neighbor gift.

Deliver gifts before Christmas.

Watch The Family Man, curled up on the couch with my boys wearing their new Christmas pajamas.

Feel gratitude for my family, my life, as I sit at the family party on the day after Christmas, watching the faces of the people I love.

Things I Will Do Next Christmas that I Didn’t Do This Christmas:

Try to focus on the birth of the Savior more.

Not talk Morgen into going skiing on Christmas because he was “more tired than he had ever been in his whole entire life.”

What I Learned This Christmas:

My son’s school has a good music teacher, as everyone could sing on key at the annual Christmas concert. Which is good, especially when “Chatter with the Angels” is being sung.
The world did not fall apart when I didn’t send out 100 Christmas cards this year.

The world did not fall apart when I didn’t reciprocate every single neighbor gift I received (and no matter how many extra gifts I have on hand, I always seem to run out—I learned that, too).

Speaking of which, I will never deliver neighbor gifts on Christmas. Ever. See this post if you want to know why.
Even though I’ve seen it a million times, I cry every time I watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Every. Single. Time.

The pages of our life are written daily.


The past is the past.

It's filled with memories, emotions and lessons.

The present is all around us.


  My newly planted Amaryllis

The ability to live in the moment, to recognize & appreciate life's subtleties, is worth it. And a new chapter begins. Happy Freaking New Year. 2011. Yay.
What did you learn last year? What will you do the same/differently this year?