NEW TRADITIONS

I stink at making traditions.

I love the idea of them and yet year after year I find myself replaying the same dialogue inside my head.

This year I'm going to...

I'll spare you the list but trust me it goes on and on. As if by surprise, December 25th arrives and most of my plans never made it passed the good intention phase. I'd like to tell you I only struggle with this at Christmas time but that would be a lie the size of Santa's belly. Although I still wrestle with this giant that is procrastination for various reasons, (that's a whole other blog post) I am learning.

Learning to stop setting my sights on getting to the North Pole when I really just need to step outside my back door, has been a slow process. Here's a small example of my fight:

The Perpetual Formula

1. Spend hours watching a YouTube video on decorating sugar cookies (or oil painting, pencil sketching, typography, embroidering, decorating, sewing...that list goes on and on too).

2. Convince myself I can totally do that.

3. Buy more fancy and entirely too expensive gadgets than I could possibly need.

4. Set out to make three dozen of the most beautifully adorned cookies you've ever seen. The picture of what I will make is seared into my brain and I can't wait to share them with others.

5. Attempt the first cookie. My handsome snow man turned into the boogie man.

6. Wad up my parchment paper and throw it in the trash leaving a trail of flour from the force of the blast.

Showing Grace

When my children attempt something for the very first time I don't throw them out. I'm proud of even the smallest attempt so I encourage them along the way.

With God's grace, I'm learning to change my internal dialogue to sound a bit more motherly. Most importantly, I'm learning that without the failures the successes will never come.