Holiday Traditions

When I was growing up, I knew exactly where I was going to be on Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve.  I knew not to get out of bed before 5:30am on Christmas morning. We opened presents on Christmas Day, not Christmas Eve.  We had ham on Christmas and turkey on Thanksgiving.

In my late teens, my mom’s family quit gathering on Thanksgiving.  Where will we go?  What will we do?  Every year after that was different.  These days I cook, not knowing who will be around to eat.

A few years later, my dad’s family decided not to gather on Christmas Eve and get together a week or two before Christmas.  What will we do on Christmas Eve now?  Where will we go?  What will we do? 

I married, divorced, moved away, came back, changed jobs…as did my siblings and cousins.  We had children.  They grew up and got jobs, married, had children.  Getting together as our family extends and extends is challenging.  We do our best.

Trying to establish new holiday traditions has become, well, challenging to say the least, sometimes frustrating, often disappointing.  And I’m just talking about my immediate family!

This Christmas the planning looked something like this:

Are we having Chinese again this Christmas Eve? I don’t know.  Are we opening presents Christmas Eve?  I don’t know.  I’m babysitting then we have small kids around and I don’t know when Anna will be home.  Anna, what time will you be home?  I don’t know.

What time will the kids be up in the morning?  I don’t know – be here by 6a.m.  Are we opening presents then?  I don’t know.  What time are the kids leaving?  I don’t know.  What time is Christmas dinner?  I don’t know.  Are we playing cards after dinner?  I don’t know. I think they are going fishing.

So, I think that is what’s called ‘winging it’!  It ended up being a lovely holiday filled with excitement and confusion, but we had ourselves … a merry little Christmas! I would have to say, though, that our core traditions were: spending as much time as possible together, appreciating each other, and not being attached to traditions-past.

Today is New Year’s Eve!  What am I doing?  I don’t know…yet.  But whatever it is, it will be right and perfect.  Being okay with not knowing takes practice, focusing on what is important and not on what should have been because it has already been – that’s the challenge and the gift.  I’m getting better every year!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Higher Self Bookstore and my family have been my biggest priority and my most important relationships

these past few years.  My beliefs about what it looks like to be caretaker of the store, mother to my daughter, grandmother to my grandson have directed my decisions, my commitments, my actions - as well as my reactions emotionally.  I often forgot to put myself on the list of priorities so it's no wonder that my experiences in these relationships were not always what I'd call fulfilling - not entirely.

As in all relationships, there are slow times, bumpy times, boring times, and times of miscommunication and misunderstandings.  Sometimes I felt cheated, betrayed, and unloved by what I gave all my love to.  Well, if I'm not loving me, making me a priority, what else can I expect?  I know from experience that when I am loving me, appreciating me, respecting me, being loyal to me, never cheating on me - my reality is quite different.

My daughter is off on her own raising her son and doing just fine without me, though she may never say she didn't "need" me because that's how she expresses her love.  And, I've come to realize that no matter how much I try to control what happens in the store, it's just not always loving me back the way I want to be loved - and this is really out of my control.  It does it's best but I think it is trying to tell me that it cannot be the "be all, end all" of my life.  Maybe I'm trying to suffocate it - loving it and trying to make it do what I want it to do so I can be happy and fulfilled.  This relationship is not in balance!

So I signed up on a couple of online dating sites.  I've been "married" to the above mentioned relationships for far too long.  I was "chatting" with one gentleman from California and said "You're in California, I'm in Northern Michigan.  How do you figure?" (as in, how do we get to know each other).  His reply, "LOL. Leave it to me."

Wow!  Really?  Did someone just say to me that I am not the one this time to figure it out, make a plan, make it happen, make all the decisions, take all the action....  I must be dreaming.  It's not a bad thing to be independent, self-sufficient, and responsible, but it can be depleting, exhausting, depressing and even hardening to believe I have to do it all, all the time. After all, even if help is offered they don't truly mean it and I'm still responsible so I might as well do it myself.  Holy Cow, Ricki - lighten up!

I say I've surrendered those things I can't control to All That Is, but I don't think I truly understood what that meant.  No, I didn't surrender into hopelessness - but I didn't lay it all in the hands of the Creator, either.  "Leave it to me."  That's what I needed to hear.  That is what true surrender is all about.

Whether I ever meet this gentleman or not, I will be forever grateful for his gift of those words.  They have brought clarity to what I want to experience in my relationship with a partner, and in my relationship with God.