Clear Out To Receive

You will often hear me preaching a "less is more" approach to life. My theory is the less you have, the more space there is for new opportunities to come into your life. It took me awhile to come to this conclusion, but I've worked a lot on this concept over the past few years. I feel like I'm finally overcoming the idea that you are only "rich" if you have a lot of stuff. 

So the "less is more" principle is something that I myself try desperately to follow on a daily basis, and I feel that I'm successful most of the time. That is, until "The Holiday Season." (Dum dum dummmm!!!!) 

It's hard to resist over-spending and over-gifting when we are bombarded with Christmas music before Halloween, and visual messages are everywhere shouting "MORE IS MORE" and "GO IN DEBT, IT MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY", "BUY THIS CRAPPY THINGY THAT WILL JUST TAKE UP SPACE SOMEWHERE AND ISN'T USEFUL BUT WILL MAKE US FEEL GOOD BECAUSE IT WAS A THING WE GAVE SOMEONE", etc etc.

It's hard not to go into a store and feel the need to spend, spend, spend. It's hard to turn on the TV and not feel the need to acquire, acquire, acquire. In our house, we've figured out a great way to bypass most of this. We don't get the Sunday paper (so therefore don't look at the ads), we only go shopping if we have an immediate need for something and we mute the TV commercials. In fact, my husband and I are so notorious for muting commercials that my brother-in-law tweeted on Thanksgiving that "there will be no commercial muting allowed" (Ha! Like that could stop us!)

I've desperately tried to cut back on a commercialistic Christmas. I try to make most of my gifts and to give consumables, like home-baked cookies or muffins.  Things that are appreciated & (hopefully) gobbled up, leaving only an empty jar (with a promise of refilling during the year as many times as they like).  

Of course, hand-made gifts can be harder to replace store bought things if you have children. Will they really be happy with a tin of chocolate chip cookies when their friends all got iPhones from Santa? So we tend to give the kids one or two bigger gifts, especially since we don't really consume much for most of the year and they usually "need" it. They've gotten iPods and bikes in past years, but it gets a harder as they get older. When they were little, I could wrap up garage sale finds and not only were they happy, but none the wiser. I still put candy canes, socks and books in their stockings (and threaten oranges and corn-husk dolls a la Little House On The Prairie when they start to get bratty about it). 

In years past I've purchased Heifer International chickens and goats and once gifted an Alpaca in my parents' name. (My dad's dream has always been to have an Alpaca farm, and I thought this was the next best thing and as an extra bonus for my mom, no poop!) It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I did it. What's better than helping a poor family in Nepal have extra eggs to sell at the market so their kids can go to school?

This morning I was reminded of our standing oath to boycott an American Style Christmas when I opened an email from my son's high school. He goes to St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City. It's an all-male Jesuit High School and for those of you not in the know, their mantra is "men for others." It's a fabulous school that my son Dante LOVES. I love that it's teaching him to serve others, especially those in need (and my dream is one day I'll awake to him serving me, sigh).

Anyway, they sent out a lovely list of how to de-stress the holiday (Jesus is the reason for the season and all that), but also had a great list of charities & fair-trade websites that inspired me to write this and to share that info. You don't need to be Catholic (or even religious) to make the decision to change where your holiday dollars go. You just need the desire to change.

So in that vein, I want to wish all of you a most tremendously stress-free holiday & remind you that YOU have the power to make it stress free. Cut back and say NO to the commercialism and the hype, and take time to be with your family. As someone who has a senior in high school can attest, in a nano-second they go from leaving cookies for Santa to leaving for college. I realized that for the first time this past week during Thanksgiving vacation that next year will be very, very different around here and I am not OK with that (and we are NOT going to talk about that right now unless someone gets me a hankie).

In the meantime, MAKE THE TIME to clean out the house now BEFORE the holidays! Sign up for a VVA pickup right now so you have a deadline. It will clear space for all the new things to come into your life, and not just all the crap you'll get for Christmas, but the wonderful things like new opportunities and greater clarity about your goals.

Don't save your New Year's Resolution for January 1st, put it in effect today. Just say "NO" to a Merry Overindulging Credit Christmas and nestle down with some knitting and nog in front of the fire and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and just BE.

All My Best Wishes For A Happy & Healthy Holiday Season!