This has been a Christmas of letting go and letting in (and letting out of waistbands too!).

It was the first Christmas for both C.C. and I to not have any of our collective four children with us on Christmas Day. Ever.

As a friend suggested when I mentioned this unusual circumstance, “Get used to the new normal”.

Along with our children not being here, there were lots of other differences this Christmas. Most of them came about because of changes in our living space — we are in an ‘in-between’ home as we finish off renovations to our new home. In the flurry of selling and moving out of our old home, finding temporary accommodations and figuring out what we’d need for the two months of temporary displacement, I lost track of time and dates and all sorts of things. To find my balance and my way, I had no choice but to be present with whatever came my way — either through mistake, planning or happenstance!

For all its differences and unexpected delights and pre-planned pleasures, it was a beautiful Christmas.

That’s the thing about tradition. You don’t know what else awaits until you let go of what always was and open the door to what’s possible.

And that’s the thing about beauty. It is always present. In the familiar and unfamiliar. In the old and the new. In the well-worn and the untried. It is always present.

We tired a new way of doing Christmas this year and while there was not the comfort of the old, there was joy.

And along with joy, there was laughter, good times, good friends, and Love. And still more to come as we prepare to gather around the dinner table with our four children, family and friends on the 29th. It may be four days after Christmas, but it will still steeped in the comfort and joy of being together with so many special people.

Wishing you and yours a restful Boxing Day and a week of good tidings of comfort and joy as you prepare for the new year waiting just beyond the horizon.

Namaste