Changing Season and Season of Change

Sisters

Grannny to the Smiths!

the shoulders I used to ride on

first art lesson with Aunt Katherine

No Gigi...thats not pumpkin pie!! 

toothless

How well do YOU know your Disney princesses?  Can you spot 4?:)

A little too much candy....you think?

Different is not bad....its just....different.

Thats my mantra these days.  Our POD was delivered last week and our house is slowly emptying and looking less and less “home-y”.  My favorite time of year is Christmas.  But this year, we wont be “decking the halls”.  There wont be a gingerbread village on our sideboard...because the sideboard is gone.  The table that usually holds our nativity has been carried out to storage.  Our elf-on-the-shelf, doesnt have a shelf:)  We wont be unpacking all those boxes of garlands and wreaths and silver balls and reading all our favorite Christmas books by the fireplace where our stockings are all hung just so.  Because this season for us is not one of nesting and tradition....its one of transition.  

I dont mind change really.  I can adapt pretty easily.  Its just the “in limbo” that has me feeling out of sorts and not knowing my place.  Im a home-maker. I can make a home anywhere.  But just give me a home, a shack or a tent to domesticate.  This ‘pack-em-up-and-move-em-out’ is just so....so......unsettling.

This, the first year since having children, we didnt get our traditional “jack-o-lantern” cookies made and decorated in time for Halloween.  C couldnt really understand why I was having such a hard time with that, but you see...... Its a tradition.  And if you know my family, you know that tradition is not taken lightly.  (Ever seen Fiddler on the roof?  That’s my dad!)

I just cant pull it all off the way I want to this year.  And thats really hard for me to admit!

I backed out of being room-mom for all my kids classes and asked someone else to plan their holiday parties.  I cancelled some photo shoots.  We didnt get out all our fall decorations.  We didnt make “real” caramel apples, we just cheated and used those caramel sheets you can buy in the produce section and wrap your apple in:)  And we didnt carve pumpkins until 2 days after Halloween. 

This year is going to be different....not bad, just different!  

Its been a good exercise really.  That uncomfortable daily prodding that “this world is not our home” has helped focus my “prone to wander” perspective.  And Im acknowledging as deep-seeded as the traditions and memories are that I long to create year-after-year with my children, there is a lot of ‘stuff’ and ‘fluff’ that detracts from just being...just abiding....just enjoying eachother.  

And God has been good and gracious to know my longing heart for memory-making and has been sweet to give opportunities for creating memories along the way.  A visit from my sister and brother-in-law.  A fun fall picnic and “apple day” with my parents and sisters in the North Georgia mountains.  Im trying to hold ‘traditions’ with an open hand and maintain an open heart for the new and different memories that God wants to weave into our days in this season that we celebrate the Christ-child who was welcomed with no home...no comfort...no beauty.  Praying that our hearts this year would be fit to receive and reflect on His sacrifice for us as we accept this chapter of our lives that looks different than the “Norman Rockwell fantasy” Id normally try to create.  Trying to embrace this season of reflection without so much of the “pretty” that can easily distract and disguise the pure and simple joy that is ours in Christ.