Five Important Things You May Have Forgotten on Your December Calendar
When December arrives each year, the curved stone path in front of my house is usually covered with snow. My favorite place to sit and look out upon it is close to my living room window. With my coffee, journal, Bible, and Christmas devotional beside me, I savor the moments here reading words on a page. The Advent season is one of my favorite times to write about memories of December days that weave their way through my heart. December memories come alive again as I reminisce through their many pages.
Many deadlines make their way onto my December calendar. Even if I have not been consistently keeping a calendar throughout the year, I need one this month! It helps me feel less overwhelmed and overloaded by scheduling margin in between my moments. I schedule time for things meaningful to my family. Gratitude rises in me, however, when I put the following into my December days:
1. Schedule deadlines for the heart
I schedule deadlines for my heart to help me experience the wonder that goes along with the Christmas season, wondering about the story of Jesus’ birth by reading it again, and reading an Advent devotional each day. I write about what I am thankful for and ask God to show me something new to wonder about in this season. Wondering weaves a path through the deadlines onto the pages of my heart.
2. Savor the simple moments
My life quiets down when traveling the snow-covered roads to home, with the peacefulness of adjacent fields covered in white adding to the simple moments of the drive. I hold onto moments at home when the lights twinkle away on the tree and look for beauty in places unnoticed, like the red berries on the bush beside my house as the snow and ice collect upon them. I light a candle for ambience and savor a cup of cappuccino with whipped cream on top at the end of the day, simple but delicious.
3. Look for beauty to help process grief
The time when I need to process grief happens near the anniversary of my father’s passing. He has been gone now for eight Decembers. I remember the sleigh bells I found in his farmhouse, reminding me of the horse and sleigh rides we had on the farm when I was a little girl. There is always a sadness and loss I feel in remembering him, but I choose to hold the beauty of the sleigh bells and other things of beauty close to my heart. In working through other losses in life, I learned determining to find beauty in the midst of the loss helps me grieve in a healthy way and not get stuck in my pain.
4. Celebrate gifts money cannot buy
One of my stronger love languages is gifts. I realize the need to put more focus this year on giving tangible gift experiences of love instead of just buying or receiving a gift in order to feel loved.
One of my most memorable experiences was traveling to Bulgaria with my husband to adopt our two-year old son, flying over snow covered mountains, and driving many hours to the orphanage to hold him for the first time. Life changed in that moment on December 21st of 1998. As a family, we celebrate Gottcha Day every year and rejoice with the gift God gave us, whose first day in America was waking up on Christmas Day—truly a gift money could not buy.
5. Cultivate gratitude with intentional thanks
My One Word for 2022 is “cultivate.” Many things in life have been cultivated this year, and gratitude is one of those things that got turned over frequently in the soil of my heart. The more I live with being intentionally thankful, the more peace I find. I find much gratitude for these December days that wrap around my heart much like a garland wraps around a Christmas tree, shaping the way I look at life in the middle of moments that are busy, simple, beautiful, priceless.
Meet Noreen Sevret
Noreen Sevret is a writer who shares about finding hope in simple life moments, sorrows, and pain while seeking beauty in unexpected places. She is passionate about taking pictures of ordinary things—often on the road less traveled. Noreen lives in upstate New York, where she finds joy in flowers, sunsets, visiting the ocean, walks with her husband, coffee with friends, and facilitating journaling and book study classes for women. Noreen and her husband, Steve, of 37 years, walked through an international adoption journey years ago that changed their lives. When Noreen is not writing or enjoying family, friends, and nature, she is likely serving at a local funeral home where she works full-time.
Where to find her . . .
- Website
- Email: nsevret@stny.rr.com
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
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If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.
