Notes from the Spring Creek Arts Guild

Let There Be Peace

And let it begin with me… Come to think of it, I have always been a seeker of peace. Excitement has never been my jam, so to speak. If you read this column regularly, it likely is not your jam either.

Here we are just a few days away from actual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and guess what? We already had our big, exciting Christmas here on the Ledbetter Ranch. I had all the gifts bought and had wrapped all but a few when late Thursday evening, my son-in-law texted the family with the idea that we go ahead and “do Christmas” over the coming weekend. As our children have become adults and married, we have started “doing Christmas” on dates sometime within the generalized Christmas season. We do this to avoid putting everyone in tight spots due to the various families wanting to have Christmas at their house. I also have the philosophy that new families need to set their own traditions and not just be racing from house to house doing Christmas here and there. Makes me exhausted just thinking about it.

There were only two hitches to suddenly calling Christmas a week early. First was that I had not planned a Christmas dinner menu and, consequently had done no grocery shopping. Second, I had intentions of sewing some small items this week to give as little bonus gifts. The dinner problem quickly worked itself out when I remembered I had two packages of pork tenderloins in the freezer, had just cooked a huge batch of collard greens, and had some dried Lady Cream Peas on hand. We quickly settled on having a big Southern-style meal and the other families decided what their contributions would be. On the sewing projects, I just told them we were going to the “12 Days of Christmas” plan where I would have the option of continuing to give them small gifts until Epiphany, January 6th. There was one additional problem in that I hadn’t had time to clean or organize for guests, but I really think no one noticed. It would have been quickly undone by the time we added five more people and two more dogs into our very small house.

Guess what? It was a beautiful and peaceful two days with my extended family. Looking back on it, I have decided that the peace comes mostly from inside a person’s head. A person can decide to greatly limit or eliminate expectations which eliminates a lot of pressure from everyone. A person can decide to give up on trying to control things, which eliminates a ton of stress. A person can decide to be completely present in the moment instead brooding about the past or worrying about the future—a very peaceful practice. If you are a person of faith, you can hand off your agitating thoughts, memories, and worries to God and feel the peace wash over you—makes me feel better just typing that out. These are not original ideas, and it has taken me many years to mature into this. I am hoping by sharing these ideas with you, you can short-cut into them instead of learning the hard way like I have.

I hope every one of you has a wonderful Christmas and it is as exciting or as peaceful as you would like for it to be. Happy birthday, Jesus! <SpringCreekArtsGuild@gmail.com>