Christmas isn’t an easy time of year to maintain calm, peace and reflection. Christmas carols remind us to still ourselves, tradition asks that we respect one another but reality sets in. Maximus (my 9 month old son) will celebrate Christmas for the first time this year.
For many years I thought I wouldn’t ever share Christmas with a family, with the prediction of infertility. Each Christmas would pass and I would question ‘when will I ever get to play Santa at the midnight hour of Christmas?’.
This year because of my little miracle, I am doing my best to celebrate each moment and savour the dream realised.
It is easy though to fall prey to unmet expectations and miss the beauty in pursuit of perfection.
No Christmas is ever perfect.
No person is ever perfect.
Ultimately lots of Christmas’s past have resulted in unmet expectations.
Therefore we have stressed out mum’s at the shopping centre, exasperated Dad’s as they try to find that perfect gift and frustrated children as they are dragged from event to event.
This week I took my son for his first Santa photo, a new tradition now created and I thought of a few lessons in the queue that may help your Christmas be a little more generous this year.
Lessons from a first time Santa Photo mum
1) The people in the line are as frustrated and tired as you are, so just relax and smile.
2) The queue is always going to take a while, so enjoy the moment, have a little conversation with the people around you and think generous thoughts.
3) The staff holding your precious angel have held hundreds of others already this week and their arms and hearts are a little weary also.
4) Does it really matter if ‘Johnny’ doesn’t like Santa and refuses his photo? In the bigger scheme of things a skipped photo is not going to be remembered at his twenty first birthday.
5) breathe.
6) Find ways to be generous to those facing the hoards of people also. A smile, a joke, a conversation, a lolly, a kind look of compassion.
7) Find a way to surprise someone in the line this year, a free coffee, a little present, a mint, a kind word. Live Generous.
Life is too short for Grinch Mum’s lining up exasperated at the shops. The memory is so much more important than the perfection of the outcome.
Generosity is a nice concept but in reality its hard work.
Merry nearly Christmas friends.
7 days till Christmas eve.
Deep breath.
Amanda