This season, I find myself needing to exercise a little extra self-control on many fronts.
I need to eat a little less of these sweets that are ubiquitous and that my pregnant body seems to be craving. Maybe if I go for a few more vegetables, I will already be full...
I need to pass up the fast food places that seem so convenient and easy and untiring when I'm feeling busy and a little extra tired.
I need to stop myself from buying one more gift for little B, or new little baby--who's not even here--even though I saw the cutest little thing and he would love it and I would smile to watch and look it's even made with untreated natural wood...
I need to be realistic with how many homemade gifts I plan to make, and its list of recipients. I feel my ambition and crafty nesting hormones leading me astray. Homemade caramel syrup for B's church nursery leaders, raw sugar body scrub for friends, cloth books for niece and nephew, some cloth diaper bag nametags for friends, a knitted scarf for someone I haven't decided. Tomorrow I may think of more. Then when it comes time to execute, I'm more tired than I expected and begin the inevitable delaying that will kill my plans, or leave me up late at night in the days before I plan to give the gifts.
I need to refrain from mentally (or even verbally) criticizing others for how they approach the holidays and all of its consumer temptations. Maybe this is the hardest one, because it feels so subtle to switch from thinking about what I really value more than all the stuff to then thinking not-so-kindly about how others might seem to be emphasizing stuff. But honestly, it is because it is so hard for me to keep my mind on what it most important that I find it hard to be gentle and compassionate with how all the sales and temptations are tripping others up. I find myself wanting to update my own "Christmas list" far too often, even though I know that I will only get a few gifts, and that is how I've set it up purposely! I think about how I'm only going to get a few gifts, so I want them to be the things that I really need or want rather than random. Yet really, that is not what I want my Christmas season to center around.
I need my heart set on things above.
I need to daily remember Jesus, and the fact that Christmas proclaims that he came and stayed and is here with us.
I need carry his presence with me in such a way that I can gently and humbly invite others to experience his presence and life among us. That I can not be a further cause of stress and hurry and anxious expectations.
I need gratitude for the beauty that already is present without me or anyone else having to work to produce it.
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