Routines and Rituals

The routines and rituals that surround the holiday season can hold so much weight for us. 

As you make travel plans, consider what gifts to buy, and prepare your body and spirit for the holidays, it can often feel like preparing for a battle you have fought year after year. Or maybe a battle is even too spontaneous a metaphor. Holidays can feel more like a well worn VHS tape - you rewind back to the beginning and let the same story play out the same way, time and time again. 

Sometimes, that familiarity can be comforting. You have an idea of what your family’s home will look like when you walk through the door, the smells of holiday cooking hit you exactly as you expect, and everyone still gathers around the same table - a little older, sure, but all still there. 

But what happens when things do change? When your parents decide to move out of the home you grew up in? When your childhood friend has a family of their own now? When there’s one more empty seat at the table? 

Our world is constantly changing and it can often feel like the holidays are an anchor in the storm. This season, I invite you to find your capacity to accept change as it comes and make something new and beautiful from that unexplored territory. I don’t know if I have the answer - but I am curious what it would feel like to observe your reaction to any changes this holiday season. What does it feel like to ride the wave of unfamiliarity? Can it be exciting to make new traditions out of the old ones that don’t serve us anymore?

Maybe instead of a big dinner everyone comes together for a movie in the evening. Maybe you spend the holidays at a different house, or don’t go home to your family at all. You have the power and the creativity to form a new way of approaching the holidays - a way filled with spontaneity, joy, and real connection with loved ones.