At the beginning of 2019 I made a new years resolution to give up a few pretty huge things:
1) social media
2) online shopping
3) blogging/entepreneural ventures in general (AKA distractions from my actual job of stay at home momming)
To be totally honest, I stayed pretty strong on all of these for a good half a year! But the second half of the year social media crept back in, in waves on and off, as I ate keto and needed some moral support from the keto community of instagram (which is good and strong)...
And no online spending was going well... until I discovered Wish... hahaha! Me and wish had a pretty short-lived love affair though. generally painless. I got a few good things, and a few duds, and a few refunds... all in all, not worth my time, but no harm done. Then with school starting up and kids needing clothes, and winter gear, the online shopping resolution kinda went out the window... I mean, have you ever gone clothing shopping with three children? Ya... I dont plan to either haha!
The blogging one? Well that one I stuck to my guns, until literally RIGHT NOW! but hey.... resolutions are made to be broken aren't they?? I'm still glad I made all three resolutions, because I was constantly checking myself in all these areas even though I didn't meet my ultumate goals of abstinence in these areas. I still came out having progressed forwards! So i'd say my resolutions were achieved in that sense! :) I'll likely make new resolutions for 2020 too...
For now, I just needed a space to organize my thoughts... I think part of why it's been so easy not to blog or start any creative ventures, is that I had a baby end of January 2019. My third son! I am living in my glory with my three boys and husband. The queen of my little kingdom you could say. Do I wish I had a daughter? honestly, nope! Not even in secret. I'm not just saying this because my kids could read this ten years from now... I am so legitimately happy and at peace with my manly family! And I have confidence that God made me the exact right mom to raise these three boys too. So that plays into it too.
So ANYWAYS... (speaking of ADHD lol) 2019 I didn't really blog cause I was basically a slepless wreck all year. My youngest, Levi, was breastfed like my other two, only he was an every-two-hour baby 24/7 for a solid 8 months... yuuup... 8 friggin' months... and even now at 10.5 months he still nurses 3 times a night... he's practically weaned during the daytime... and then he just becomes a thirsty camel when the sun sets... sigh! You'd think by the third kid you'd have it figured out, but they are simply all different. You can't decide what kind of kid you're gonna have, and you just have to roll with it! ... a sleepy... slightly insane...weepy roll with it... (JK...srsly...jk...)
OK all of that is just my "hi i'm back" intro! :) so, Hi i'm back!
This is always the time of year that my "maximalist" personality screams it's loudest...Christmas time... I have so much good natured fun with the fact that all the minimalists of winnipeg are collectively murmering and enjoying their ... Sweet...nothings (??)... making their homes all clean, and organized and focused... then I just stroll along, AND KICK DOWN THE DOOR! I'M WEARING A SANTA HAT, ELF SHOES AND THE MOST GAWDY CHRISTMAS EARRINGS YOUVE EVER SEEN! I PUT DECORATIONS ON YOUR TREE AND THROW GLITTER ALL OVER YOUR FLOOR!!!!!!!!!! (perfection... in a word...)
Its just good natured fun... and no, i've never glitter-bombed anyones home for real...but theres a few of you who are on my radar to do this to at some point if your minimalism gets too outta hand... just sayin!
In all seriousness though, I think Christ has room in his heart for minimalists and maximalists alike... take Mary and Martha for example in the bible... Mary was hands-down a minimalist... and someone Jesus loved dearly! The way she would just forget everything and simply BE with Jesus... She "got" it...
But then there's John...the disciple "whom the LORD loved". An adhd, impulsive loud mouth maximalist at it's finest! You need only read the gospels to realize this as he's constantly blurting things out and going too far... "NEVER LORD! DON'T WASH MY FEET" "WASH MY WHOLE BODY!" "I WILL NEVER DENY YOU LORD" "GET THOSE KIDS AWAY FROM THE LORD HE DOESN'T HAVE TIME FOR THEM!" "ILL PROTECT YOU LORD!" (proceeds to cut off someones ear)... you know... Just to give a few examples...
Jesus had room in his heart for both minimalists and maximalists... they are legitimately both beautiful to our God. Jesus loves it when we cut out all the crap, cut it down to just us-and-him... and I too, love these intimate moments with my God...
But God also loves it when we scream it from the rooftops how much we love Him and how excited we are about his birthday and all that it represents! And I'm happy to get wrapped up in the tinsel and lights, and elfing-on-the-shelfing and advent sugar-highs... because it's once a year... it's fleeting, and it's magical for my kids... It instills in them the reality that "This...is...important!" This is a priority, not simply something to be tolerated. This is a celebration. This is EXCITING! This is something worth getting riled up over!
Think about the analogies you use in your adult life... stuff like "i was like a kid at Christmas..."
I personally don't know if a kid who has no Christmas magic, will understand that analogy when they are an adult... ya know? There really is a place in a christian home for the "extras" of the season...
and there's also something to be said for acknowledging that this time of year is also a pagan holiday... This doesn't need to be a tug-of-war with the whole "keep christ in christmas" thing... we can just be at peace that our celebrations aren't the only ones that are occuring...
The winter solstice happens on December 21'st and MANY cultures have various celebrations and festivals that revolve around this particular change in the seasons... and THATS OKAY! we christians chose this time of year for the same reason really... We took something and used it for His glory... But that doesn't make the "rest of it" evil, it makes it...the rest! God invented the seasons... I like to believe he's at least a LITTLE bit honored by the various cultures and religions that honor this change in season with their festivals... or at least a little flattered by the sheer wonder we hold for how intricate this planet of ours is, and how these changes in seasons occur... they truly are a miracle themselves (whether you think about them religiously or scientifically). And what better time of year to celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior, then the time of year when everything starts to change in our season... the days start getting longer... the winter starts getting bitterly colder but that is a change as well, which leads the earth to rest, in order to awaken once again with new life! Wow!
And so, to the minimalists, the maximalists... the christmas-ers, holiday-ers, Hanukah-ers, kwanza-ers, Native Solstice celebrators, etc... I wish you all the excitement of this season... and I wish you God's blessings, and the light of Christ's love over your heart and home.
Glory be to God in the highest... and on earth, peace...
