Shaking Off the Debris

Some years come in like sun after a rainstorm, shining a new light on things, making everything seem shiny, clean and full of promise. Some years don’t seem to come in at all. They just slink into being while continuing everything that went before in an unbroken trudge. Other years come in with a *bang*…

2017 – Year of the Rooster

It’s tempting, especially this year, to shake off everything that happened in the year which is ending and look forward with high hopes and idealistic expectations to the year ahead. If we do this in a celebratory way, as a means of breaking up old energy, evaluating and celebrating what has been through roasting it…

Follow Through

It’s New Year’s Eve and it’s traditional to make resolutions for the year ahead. We try to figure out what happened over the past year, what the take aways are, what we could have done better, should have done, were successful at, and have to work with in the next year. From this we make…

Snow Globes

The Holidays (Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah) tend to shake people up. It’s like we’re snow globes. We’ve been calm and settled for most of the year. Just and occasional shake to get things moved into a new position and then everything settles down again. But then comes the Holidays and a shake fest. Absolutely everything at the surface…

Jolabokaflod

In Iceland there’s a holiday tradition of giving each other a book on Christmas Eve: Jolabokaflod.  The entire family sits down with chocolate to snuggle and read. Being a book person I couldn’t resist, so  I started doing this myself a few years ago. It always brings to mind a memory from a time when I…

Holidays & Broken Trust

Holidays for many people are fraught with mixed messages and mixed emotions. Traditions can trap us in activities which are negative, force us to interact with people who hurt us, put us in vulnerable situations and tell us how to feel so we can fail when we don’t. Yay! Pass the eggnog. This can be…

When Is It Your Turn?

‘Tis the season for the Santa Clause wish list. The collated and prioritized list of what we want and/or expect from our nearest and dearest. It’s also a time for judgement. It’s subtle and not so subtle, but it’s there and everyone feels it. Santa has a naughty or nice list, everyone is trying hastily…

The Test of Time

There is a cachet placed on traditions which stand the test of time. Being linear beings who live relatively brief lives, we have a reverence for things which outlast us. This includes holiday traditions. They connect us to our past, to loved ones near and far, to the generations who have gone before us, to…