Notes from the Spring Creek Arts Guild

Peace Be With You

It appears I have taken an impromptu vacation from writing this column! I apologize. Sometimes life gets so busy that it is a challenge to think of more than a couple of coherent thoughts in a row. Sometimes we all feel like we are running from task to task, trying to keep all the plates spinning at the ends of their poles.

For many people, that frantic plate-spinning time of the year starts to heat up toward the end of October and just gets hotter and hotter, more and more frantic until the first day of January. I see this on the many fibercraft-related Facebook and Instagram accounts I follow—makers are bemoaning all the gift-making projects they have to finish in the next three weeks.

It is not just the makers of the world who are under pressure. Last Tuesday, one of my hunters told me he would not be able to come back until close to Christmas because he had so many workrelated Christmas parties to attend. Many people are filling every available minute shopping for gifts or working in businesses that are selling all those gifts. Others are cooking special meals, dishes to take to parties, or making cookies and candy to give away. Still others, like my daughter, are busy at their jobs trying to package up the business year in preparation for the coming tax season.

Back when I was younger, I often lollygagged around until the last minute before a task became due and then rode the adrenaline wave to complete the task just in the nick of time (usually). Most of the embarrassing parts of my college transcript are due to me not quite meeting a deadline. At some point I realized what the self-induced stress was doing to my mental and physical health and decided to change my ways. One aspect of that was to change how I do the holidays. I try to avoid anything that will make me feel stress or dread over the holiday season. I realize some people see that adrenaline as excitement and look forward to it every holiday season. To each their own.

Here is my version of lowstress holidays…I do not plan big get-togethers and I do not travel much right around holidays. I am highly flexible in regard to observing holidays on alternate days—in other words if everyone cannot get together on December 24th or 25th, we can get together on some other day to observe Christmas. My gift list is generally limited to immediate family and whomever else I get the urge to give something to, and those gifts are usually not big or expensive. Since all of the late fall and early winter holidays feature rich foods in abundance and more alcohol than I am used to consuming, I try to really watch portion sizes and balance the special meals with especially healthy meals the rest of the time. The simplest way to sum up my philosophy is that I work at keeping Thanksgiving about being thankful, Christmas about celebrating the birth of Jesus, and New Year’s Eve and Day about clearing out the old and welcoming the new. In all of the holidays, my emphasis is on spending time with my family.

Note I did not say I have NOstress holidays. Like many of you I have periods of sadness, especially when I think about the people who are no longer here with us or about broken relationships that keep us from being at peace with each other or about people in desperate circumstances as the world around them celebrates the holidays. Prayer helps me during those times.

I realize some people will read this and think my maiden name is surely Scrooge. But I hope others can find some comfort or maybe a feeling of acceptance in knowing that some of us prefer to keep things more low-key this time of year. No matter how you do the holidays, I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season full of love, joy, and peace. SpringCreekArtsGuild@gmail.com