They’re coming….the Holidays…..what do they mean to you?  Cooking, cleaning, shopping, decorating, relatives, entertaining, traveling?????

Wow, I’m tired just typing out those words, and I’m sure that I’ve missed a few.  There is no doubt that for most of us the Holidays involve a change of the routine and more work.  I suppose that we should keep in mind those for whom the Holidays are just another day, those with no homes, families, etc.  Their stress is certainly on a different level.

For most of us, however,  it is time to plan and try to do all the extras while maintaining our own daily schedules – how do we do it year after year?

It is because of all of the distractions, all the media hype, all the secular ‘stuff’, all the business, and all the expectations from without and within that we often fail to ‘live’ the Holidays, not simply ‘get through them’.  How many of us think that we actually need a vacation when the Holidays are over, just to relax a bit?

Holidays are meant to be an oasis in our daily lives.  A time to spend with family, if we are blessed enough to have family that wants to be together.  They are a time to eat a bit more, laugh a bit more, and sometimes, cry a bit more.  They are a time apart.  They may not be that ‘desert experience’ of quiet solitude, perhaps they are more of a ‘dessert experience’, but we should enjoy and appreciate every moment of them. 

There’s still much to do, thinking, planning, doing, but before you know it, they will be here and gone.  We must try to ignore how the world instructs us to celebrate…..bigger, better, busier.  We are blessings, our families and friends are blessings, the food on our tables are blessings, and for that I am most grateful.