Christmas is coming and it becomes more obvious with each day. Here it is less than a week into December and already neighborhood lawns are decorated with colored lights, reindeer and plastic Santa figures. We even received two Christmas cards yesterday. Now I’m feeling rushed—am I behind schedule? Will I have time to do it all?
Let’s see there are cards to write and send, decorating to do, lots and lots of wrapping and even a little shopping left. Plus, I’ve volunteered again to cook Christmas dinner for 15.
I guess I have three choices. I can:
• Resent the holidays, rush to accomplish the things that have to be done and grumble like an old Scrooge.
• Downsize Christmas.
• Take a holiday vacation from the intensity I put into my writing work and thoroughly enjoy the season with family and friends. Oh, doesn’t that sound fun?
So this is my plan—I mapped it all out last night—I will spend some time each day from now until Christmas participating in some way in the holiday preparation and I will enjoy the heck out of it. How? By putting myself in the moment. I’ll allow no more of that ugly mindtalk about what I should be doing or what I must do later. That’s what keeps one in an exhausted, frenzied state. I will give myself permission to stop writing and stop promoting for an hour or several hours each day and focus completely on a moment or a project related to the holidays. I will do that to varying degrees every single day until Christmas. I may even go to the mall just to be a part of the hustle bustle. And I will attend at least one spiritual event or activity.
How do you balance your writing work during the holidays?
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