Pessimist or realist? Being steeped in whole truth thinking has set me free from chronic disappointment and despair. I used to be in the disappointment and despair camp-I get it. Accurate thinking is the perspective shift we need if we want to enjoy a steady, less mood-swingy holiday season. It’s a choice. Allow me to explain.
We are smack dap in the middle of the holidays. For some of us, that might mean some forced family fun. Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror, Christmas racing towards us-lots of family and extended family get-togethers. Expectations rise to a Martha Stewart holiday season. Cards, for some of us-staring us in the face, giving us the guilt-ridden stink eye, beckoning us to get them filled out and handed over to our beloved postal carrier. Reality is, they may not make it out the door before January 1st.
So many of us build up in our minds, what our experience of the family gathering to spend a long weekend (or week…or 10 days) of bonding will be. Just writing this, in my mind’s eye, I can envision the hearth of our beautiful rock fireplace with a fire roaring in it in my childhood home. I can smell hot apple cider simmering with mulling, spices mom has steeping on the stove, filling the entire house. I see a Christmas tree re-engineered by my brother Danny, so the sides that aren’t against a corner, are perfectly symmetrical, an engineering feat. Dad, warming his tired bones in front of the fire, sipping a whiskey, grinning with pride and marveling that he and mom gave birth to an engineering genius, while wondering what genetically happened to me. I see neighbor friends gathering, laughing, visiting. It’s dusk out, and peering south out the picture windows, there are deer meandering peacefully and protected in the back yard, grazing on patches of grass they come across amongst the drifts of snow. Cords of wood, indicating a warm winter despite the frigid temps outside stacked alongside the garage my dad built. Yep, it’s the annual Folger’s commercial.
Snapping back to reality, while there factually were some of those elements to our childhood Christmas experiences-there was also Cousin Eddie, Crazy Uncle Buck and Cruella de Vil who also would show up and de-Martha-fy the festivities. I think that is why the classic, epic Christmas movie that is watched by millions everywhere, year upon year with peals of laughter every time, is such a hit. It is not too far from reality. We have or know a Clark, a.k.a. ‘Sparky’, going all out to obtain the biggest tree, or be an exterior illumination specialist with 10,000 twinkle lights, disabling the power grid with unbridled enthusiasm. Kids ‘suffering’ while they have to bunk together when the outlaws show up. Grandma Francis, who’s especially gifted in the critical spirit department, joins us, pointing out all the imperfections she sees, passive-aggressively, of course. And after a long day replacing twinkle bulbs and re-engineering the tree, Sparky heads to bed, residual sap sticking the newspaper to his hands. And as he reaches over to give you a peck goodnight, his sap-laden fingers adhere to your hair.
How is it that we are blind-sided when real people, flawed just like us, show up? Truth is, we all have our quirks. Truth is we all need grace. Truth is, people will disappoint us-we shouldn’t be shocked. Truth is, we will disappoint others. That’s the world we live in. And when we align our thoughts with the reality that we are all flawed and in need of grace and mercy, we will not be thrown off our game and offended when it’s our turn to get our hair ‘sapped’. We won’t spend time wallowing in the muck and mire, or getting our dander up, instead, we will be more equipped to handle the ‘expected’ because our thoughts are based in truth-we aren’t arguing with reality. When we spend time mentally arguing with reality, we increase our stress-invoking a cascade of stress hormones, our brains go off-line and our problem-solving abilities wane.
Embrace reality. Cheers to a Merry Christmas-season.
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