Hi Friends, Parents, Students –

Hope you are all enjoying this season with your families and loved ones.  We had a “less than perfect” which ended up being the “best ever”  Christmas this year.

I tend to suffer from perfectionism (I know a few of you out there do to).  This year’s Christmas took me one step closer in learning to give up on the idolatry of perfection.

Like most families, we have the traditional activities that we partake in as part of the celebrations of this season.  Actually, partake may be too light of a word.  It’s more like we cleave ourselves to the traditions.  This year, we found ourselves having to make a last minute change in our Christmas Eve Traditions when it started to snow and my middle daughter became ill.

Instead of our Christmas Eve dinner in Seattle and the traditional photos at Kerry Park, we found ourselves running to the grocery store at 6:00 pm Christmas Eve so I could whip up a lasagna and some chicken noodle soup. When the first grocery store was out of ricotta cheese (obviously we are not the only ones having lasagna for Christmas) we had to make a dash to a second grocery store.

After some quick magicry in the kitchen,  we ate at home by candlelight in our comfy clothes.  The girls knitted scarves for their boyfriends.  We ended the evening watching the snow fall as we watched some of our favorite Christmas movies.  The watching of Elf and Santa Clause are traditions we just can’t part with.  But  we never made it to church and a few Christmas gifts to friends went undelivered.  No surprise I did not get any Christmas cards in the mail.

Christmas Day was “less than perfect” as well as we never got around to decorating the cookies we baked – I actually just chucked them in the trash. The house was trashed, my daughter was sick, and I never got around to cooking our traditional Christmas day meal.  We ate leftovers!

But my middle daughter (the one who was sick) told me twice it was the best Christmas ever, and I have to agree.   My kids are pretty grown but they still all climbed into bed with me on Christmas morning.  The dogs climbed in bed too. And there is just something very special about cuddling up by candlelight and a warm fire in your comfy pajamas with the people you love.   In the end, a lot of the “traditions” got pushed aside this year but they were replaced by a day filled with love and the joy of being in the company of each other – what a true blessing.  I hope next year is less than perfect too!