As this year moves into its final month, we face a holiday season unlike any we have ever known.  We had a warm-up with Thanksgiving, setting aside family gatherings, or limiting them, or risking them with a combination of testing and quarantining and whatever other accommodations you figured out.

These shifts and changes in how we celebrate have various effects.  One of those effects is that we make so many more decisions that we are exhausted. Nothing is taken for granted or assumed, so everything becomes a decision.  Also, a potential point of tension–or contention!–with other members of our extended families.  So, the usual layers of holiday complications can become even more thorny.

Often this time of year I encourage people to identify as a family what are the two or three most important traditions or practices for them and to let go of the rest of it.  “You don’t have to do it all,” I regularly advise.  This year, identifying those key practices may be more important.  At the same time, it may be more heart-breaking–if those things that we find most meaningful are the very ones we cannot do this year.

This is a year where letting go of all the old expectations may actually be easier than ever before.  Rather than encounter one thing after another that is frustrating and difficult when you discover that you can’t do, choose instead to let it all go and start from scratch.

So, this year, I’m going to challenge you to do something different.  Start something entirely new.  This year, come up with a practice, something you can do with family or friends, that is new (and, of course, doable during a pandemic).  Maybe it’s taking a long walk on Christmas Day.  Or adopting the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóð, giving books on Christmas Eve and spending the evening reading (https://www.readitforward.com/essay/article/jolabokaflod-meet-favorite-new-holiday-tradition/).  Maybe it’s making a wreath by hand or voting as a family for a charity to support.

There is so much this year that we have lost out on.  Perhaps that’s the time we need to find something new and different to sustain ourselves.  One of the ways we build resilience is to allow ourselves creativity to approach things in fresh ways.  Here’s your chance to practice.

May your holidays–whichever you celebrate in whatever manner–bring you joy, peace and hope.

Blessings,   Jonalu

Contact Rev Jonalu Johnstone at revjonalu@uufm.net.