How was Your Holiday This Year?

Was your Christmas peaceful or was it filled with strife and stress? Was it full of gifts of the things money can buy, or was it filled with the gifts of giving yourselves? Was it perfunctory or spontaneous and thoughtful?

Our Christmas was pleasant and easy this year. Whew!

We decided to not do the commercially-politically correct thing, putting ourselves mindlessly and frenetically into debt, running ourselves haggard shopping for gifts no one may have even wanted to have, just to be "even" on the sharing judgment card, or just to get our "proper" social quotas met of "even exchanges." *

This year we felt compelled to stop the insanity we had been complaining about as "bugging us" about Christmas. Also, we came to realize that we were definitely not alone in our gripe and discontent about having to produce our obligatory knee-jerk superficially correct holiday spirits!*

A Christmas Fashioned From Our Hearts and Not the Status Quo

We decided to forgo the insane status quo and listen to our heart's desires for this special time, and in the process, we created a truly significantly warm holiday, and decidedly, something gratifying to reflect back upon for days to come.

We made it about relationships and sharing, caring, and being with each other - visiting and enjoying each other's company and wit. We past our time telling stories, chatting each other up, playing games, and enjoying good foods.

We entertained ourselves with each other, and we enjoyed our holiday as a holy day of Sacred Time and Sacred Space filling it with our relating, and drinking each other up. It was a fine time and a holy day, indeed!

We decided to not waste our precious time and money on things, the stress of feeling obligated to buy, or the exhaustion of fighting traffic, lines in stores, or the quasi emptiness of buying "useless" gifts. We informed our friends of our choice to focus on our love for them and our desire to be with them.

Interestingly enough, no one protested, actually, most were relieved and told us so. Our shared intrigue was satisfied when we got together and no one missed the gift opening pomp and ceremony. Lovely.

As 2013 Draws Nigh, Are We Evidencing a 100^th Monkey Momentum of Hopeful Change?

Later, a friend of ours who lives out of state arrived at the same idea of celebrating with authenticity. Umm, maybe we were just responding to a 100th Monkey phenomena swelling in the undercurrents of an ever discontented Humanity no longer satisfied or satiated by corporate profit "ideals". Not being played by the corporate puppeteers felt freeing and most delicious for those of us who responded to our inner inclinations, carving out this Christmas on our own terms.

Our out of state friends played this same non-thing, giving-to-get-oriented, theme of gifting,* by everyone agreeing to the simplicity of buying cards for each other with messages bearing meanings that they desired to share. They took the time to ponder messages they wanted to say, and found cards to convey their gifts of substance.

They related back that it was a delightful experience and they enjoyed it immensely. No one felt cheated, or like anything was missing at all, except of course, that which they were more than happy to leave behind, namely, the stress and weariness, leaving a peacefulness at the heart of their celebrating. There was no, "Thank God its over," for them either. This was pleasant, and I'd say, actually we all concurred, this was the most agreeable Christmas in years!

Then, I discovered that one of my girlfriends was planning on volunteering her Christmas time to a local soup kitchen that feeds the homeless after her soon to be ex-husband picked up her son for the day. How cool was that?! ...I'm thinking, more and more, "Do we have a 100th Monkey thing going on here??"

Kids Love Authentic Giving

Oh, by the way, for the children, we did some gifting, but we put the brakes on the insanity getting tons of stuff. We did a few chosen toys with plenty of useful things like clothes, shoes, educational things and games which would bring us together, sharing in quality time by playing. Kids love to have more of us adults rather than having more toys, too. It was quite nice; we all benefited, lots of contentment and happiness filled the air. Overall, quality time took over and we had a great time, making our homes Sacred Spaces filled with Sacred Time, such as this holiday has truly been meant to be experienced.

No Regrets, Simply Pleased

Turns out that this was a decision we did not regret one iota. Maybe you'll be brave enough to take the leap and experiment with this idea for your family and friends next year. Having a non commercial event in your home is a personal choice, and not one that you are societally required to have to do.....and all the joys we found it beheld for us, you'll have for yourselves, too. It turned out to be so much more fun and fulfilling to make this about friendship and communicating rather than about money or things, because we created a Christmas for our experience that was true to the Spirit of this day.

An Invitation for Next Year...

Here's to a brave new way, radical in a positive sense, to experience a sane Christmas next year and beyond! And, here's our invitation: Let's do it again next year, too; will you be joining us?

*NOTE: I purposefully ran this sentence on-and-on, and later in this article used a "litany" of adjectives, so as to simulate the hectic business of "keeping up with the Jones" type of Christmas most of us have found ourselves unwittingly enslaved to in the past.