Before you get any ideas, the item being undressed today was our Christmas tree. It was kinda depressing. Just such an opposite feeling of that initial holiday season emotional rush. September is my favorite month. The school year begins, fall and cool weather is coming, and the holiday magic begins- not to mention all my favorite shows return from summer hiatus. Then October brings new recipies and baking things with pumpkins and apples and spices, plus all the fun of figuring out the type of Halloween cake pops we will be making at Goodiebites. November kicks in the family spirit of the holidays with Thanksgiving and get-togethers, chilly nights and cuddling with the family, and of course Black Friday (thank heaven for the cyber version cuz being trampled at 4am at Wal*Mart just doesn't do it for me.) and thenswoon it's December - woo hoo. Planning gifts for friends and loved ones, feeling stressed and overwhelmed yet welcoming it all with joy inside, and the annual Christmas tree. Every year we shop around and purchase a live (well before they cut it down it was alive) tree. And each year as we take out the huge box filled with different tree and home decorations - the porcelain moving Little Drummer Boy that my mom bought me years ago, the musical Nutcracker Suite music box with actual scenes that change and curtains that open and close - another mom gift- all the specialness of this time of year stirs inside each one of us. We string all the lights on the tree and then add the decorations. We add the ornaments - the ones that the kids got at different times in life, the little wood ones we hand-colored, the mini ones that really belong moreso on a teeny plastic table-top tree, and their favorite - the deer head. It seems to have popped off of one of the little hollow deer ornaments we have but the kids don't want to put it back together. So each year they just stick the little Barbie-doll size deer head on the tip of a branch and the kids always giggle at it. Then we turn off the house lights and plug in the tree lights and all stand in quiet awe just for a few minutes to admire the colors and scent of the season. As the days went on and the gifts piled up, we joked that we may need a second tree just to put more presents under. And finally Christmas morning came. As we do every year, we turned on the tree lights, read the biblical account of Jesus' birth, sang Happy Birthday to Him, and ate Jesus' birthday cake for breakfast. After the gifting was said and done, we were left with quiet days away from school and work where we spent time together playing games or watching tv, yet always turning on the tree lights just to savor the season a bit longer. So today as the lights were removed and the decorations put back in their boxes, we still have the scent but the season is slowly fading away. Tomorrow they will come and take the tree out of our apartment and we will be left with hundreds of needles as the only remaining proof that the tree was ever here. But thanks to the miracle of our hearts and minds that God has created in us, we will have all the memories of the season to sustain us and carry us though the next 9 months when September will arrive yet again and bring with it another batch of new holiday memories in the making. It all made me think about the cycles that life brings. How some things like the months and seasons are always going to go full circle and it's out of our hands. How other things are habits that may be harmful and we try to break those cycles - sometimes we are successful yet many times not so much. It got me thinking about the whole new years resolutions many people make. Though I am not one of those types, I can understand and appreciate the way of thinking that goes along with the promises made at the beginning of a new year. As I consider the cycles in my own life, the hamster wheels I've tried to get off and yet always seem to keep spinning on, I think the holiday season helps me realize something new. I think the repetitive cycles should be saved for the beautiful things that make us joyful inside and out, and the not so pretty ones need to be broken. Maybe I'm just rambling on and not making a word of sense, but I've come to realize there are things I've tried to change about me - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially - and yet the cycle of the negative behaviors always comes back. So I am going to try and focus on the good cycles that are worth repeating and work on ending the bad ones that cause negativity within and outside myself. Hopefully by the next holiday season I'll have some good stuff to share and blog about and I can look back on this post and feel some positive accomplishments. Until then I'll just focus on the beautiful things that I can always anticipate to come again, the positive, wonderful, awesome, beautiful things that good cycles bring.
Xoxo
-me
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