miriam beth

1. watching. white christmas. my absolutely favorite christmas movie. i turned it on the other day while i was editing photos and the girls came running in/ "why are you watching this without us?" kate asked, dismayed. i honestly had no idea they even cared. all those years i've forced everyone to watch it with me have paid off. in the works: a movie night. with hot chocolate, warm blankets and maybe some baked goods. 

2. laughing. sarah's friend wanted to have her over for a playdate. she asked for my phone number from sarah. sarah gave her my passcode. she literally had no idea what my phone number was, but did she absolutely know how to hack into my phone and look through my photos? got it!

3. listening. the punk rock playlist from amazon music. nathan calls it "rock n roll"! when we drop the elementary kids off at school he waits until they get out of the car, then he enthusiastically asks, "can we listen to rock n roll?"

4. loving. the christmas version of my bookshelves, which i am obsessed with to be begin with, but string a couple garlands on that bad boy and it's somehow even better. 

happy christmas season, friends!

 a lot of church is together. we learn in classrooms, we grow in families. we are taught that our families are our greatest group. we are told we will have these families in the gospel together--we are told we will have these families forever. we will be married, we will be parents, we will be brothers and sisters in the gospel, we will be together. 

except when we're not. 

there is a sister in my ward whose husband left the church. and then, a year later, her two sons did, too. and she was heartbroken. she was so, so heartbroken. and she felt so guilty for her heartbreak. she felt like she was being ungrateful with her heartbreak. "i don't want them to feel like I don't love them anymore, but...i think i'm in mourning. i thought we were going to do something else together, and i have to change my idea of family and what that's going to look like. i have to do all this church stuff alone, and that's hard, too. especially because everyone at church is so together..." she said, her eyes full of tears, "and i used to have people to sit with me, but now i just sit there all alone..."

i had a friend who didn't get married until she was older. we went for a hike and she told me how she felt like she had been left behind. "where is my husband?" she asked, her fists clenched at her sides. "where are my children? why am i alone?"

we are meant to do this together. when we give our hearts to jesus, when we exercise our faith and get baptized, we join a family. we are called "the children of christ" and we belong to god--and to each other. we are taught in communities. we gather for celebrations, for weddings and baptisms and graduations. we bring food and we sit together, hold each other's babies, laugh together. we mourn together. we assemble flowers and bring in warm dishes of food. we fold laundry and clean bathrooms and drop things off and pick things up and hold one another in our arms as we cry. 

but sometimes we do not. 

in 2020 we experienced this a little, didn't we? we sat in our homes, watching church through a screen, seeing all the familiar things: the pulpits and the ties, the chairs and the organ. we hear the familiar hymns, so close and so far. this we used to do together. now our circles are tightly drawn. if we do not have the housemates that are also churchmates, we are alone. and that is lonely. 

moroni was alone, too. and this is what he shows us. when he writes of the sacred practices of the nephites he is remembering the togetherness. he mentions the sacrament, the laying on of hands, the communal praying, the together. he misses it, too, doesn't he? 

sometimes things do not turn out as we had expected. sometimes things are different. sometimes they are hard. sometimes we are remembering being together and sometimes we are together. 

i long for the familiar, where i walk into sacrament meeting already exhausted by the sheer effort of just getting there and the sweet older sister who hands out the programs greets me by wrapping me in a big hug. i love the example of a prophet who, raised in the togetherness, now stands alone, and records the beautiful sacred practices of his people. moroni's simple thoughts, his example, continue to comfort us today. applicable now as when he wrote the words. 

 i was raised by an organized woman. and this helped me. i am not organized by nature, but instead by nurture. my mother had a holiday notebook--a holiday system contained in a notebook. i didn't start using it until about four years ago and my friends, my friends. this notebook. this system! it will change your holiday season. 

{cue infomercial music and video clips of white people wearing sweaters getting hopelessly and comically tangled in strands of christmas lights, dropping an impossibly huge stack of christmas cards, somehow clumsily stamping the dog instead of the card, dropping twenty rolls of wrapping paper down three flights of stairs, etc.}

"do you find the month of december overwhelming? do you dread christmas? do you struggle with drawing boundaries, with saying no, with getting everything done? 

it sounds like you needed....sally's holiday notebook!"

okay, okay, i'm not going to sell you a notebook. or even a system. but i will explain a few helpful things that have saved my skin during december. 

item #1: write down EVERYTHING you have to do, EVERYWHERE you have to go on a piece of paper. make a list. every year (i mean, not this year) we go to the nutcracker with grandma rebecca, the children have class parties i need to bring things to and sometimes attend, ryan will have a work event, etc. but then what about the things i want to do? go see lights, decorate cookies, have a movie night where we watch white christmas, etc.

i write everything down. everything. meals for any special dinners i will be preparing, what i'll serve at that magical cookie decorating party i'll be hosting, the scriptures for the nativity on christmas eve.

got your list? great. 

item #2: put it all on a calendar. the stuff that actually has a date and a time and a place, but also the things that are flexible like mailing cards. schedule out when you are going to order the cards, when you will address and stamp the cards, when you are going to mail the cards. schedule out when you will wrap presents, when you will ship presents, etc.

how full is your calendar? too full?

item #3: CROSS STUFF OFF THE LIST. do you really need to bake fourteen different types of cookies and assemble them into themed platters and drop them off at every house in your neighborhood? DON'T BE SILLY OF COURSE NOT (but if you do bring one my way).

this is where we talk about boundaries:

WHAT CAN YOU DO? i mean real-deal-let's-be-totally-honest-with-ourselves what can you do? was my class load so ridiculously high that i know i just can't decorate the entire exterior of my house with a coordinated musical score? is driving to four different places on christmas day something that will push me over the edge? do i need to do something else? 

can i just say something really quick? when did the holiday become about making everyone else happy? when did the holiday season become a day when all of the grandmas of the world get to dictate how and where and what the holiday celebration looks like? when did daughters and daughters-in-law become the gentle servants to the wishes of the extended family? if the thought of running all over town to please some matriarch (yes, even if she is yours) makes you tired and cranky and exhausted, then (are you ready for this?) SIMPLE DO NOT DO THIS THING. your responsibility ULTIMATELY is yourself and just behind yourself is your immediate (think partner and children) family. THEN you can prioritize the extensions. BOUNDARIES are when you look at something that you know is going to take more good cheer than you currently have and saying, "no thank you." that's all. "no thank you." 

IF you possess the bandwidth you could offer an alternative. "we can't have christmas eve at your house, but we can make it for christmas brunch." or, "instead of driving to three different houses christmas day, we are hosting a holiday open house at our house. everyone is invited."

and guess what? if you can do all the things next year hooray for you! next year you will do all the things. this is about this year and what you will do this year. if you miss a year of something it will not kill you. 

okay, now that we've made our list, checked it twice (haha), crossed things off, and scheduled things onto the calendar, we are ready. we have arrived! we are capable! 

sally (my mother) put this all in a notebook. included in that notebook were spreadsheets where she documented gift lists and how much they cost, where she was going to buy things from, and when. she had all the recipes she was going to need, and even a schedule of when the turkey dinner should be prepared. the master address list for christmas cards? check. the rotation for siblings gifts? got it! (thankfully my sister has taken that responsibility on) and my mother carried that notebook with her everywhere and did not add anything to her life until she had consulted the notebook. 

bless her. it must have been exhausting to be that high functioning. 

luckily for us, we need only be that high functioning if we wish (and i don't). friends, run this holiday season. don't, i beg you, let it run you. you are worth more than all of the yeses this season will ask of you. YOU. ARE. WORTH. MORE. 

now get out there and sleigh! (get it?)