Christmagical

I have the most fabulous teenaged daughter. Sure, she turned to me recently -- we were at the Gap and I was singing along with Mick Jagger, doing my best version of the White Woman's Boogie -- and asked, "Were you born embarrassing?" OK, I don't hold that against her. She's almost thirteen. She's supposed to find me utterly embarrassing. It's her job.

She's on the cusp of a life passage -- less child, more woman. As a result, she sees things from both perspectives. Both wise and wondering.

The other day as we turned a corner we spied lavish and ornate Christmas decorations. She exclaimed with the absolute delight of a child, "Mom, it's Christmagical!"

Would that we all could look at this time of year as magical. But it's hard, isn't it? So much to do. Get a tree. Get it off the car, into the house and on the stand. Haul out the decorations. Well, first you have to find them among the clutter you piled over them in the last twelve months. And buy a new package of those little hooks. Decorate the tree. Get gifts. Special, meaningful, perfect gifts. Wrap said gifts. Mail gifts. Shop for food. Cook food. Bake cookies.

Don't get me started on The Christmas Card Process. Or How To Fake Holiday Cheer To Get Through Yet Another Christmas Party.

Adult life is not very Christmagical.

This is the point where I could write about The True Meaning of Christmas, but I'll leave that to Linus (A Charlie Brown Christmas really says it all).

No, I'm going to say this: to really experience the fullness of everything Christmagical you just have to do one thing. You have to be open to unconditional receiving.

You have to be able to turn a corner and gasp because the decorations you see are so beautiful.

You have to allow yourself to tear up when you hear Vanessa Williams sing "Go Tell It On The Mountain."

You need to get to the place where you accept whatever's offered you with grace, and kindness, and an acknowledgment that other people are probably doing the best they can.

You have to be willing to let this great big, loving world we live in penetrate your grown up shell, and lift your heart.

You have to remember what it was like to be almost thirteen at Christmas. Remember what it was like to straddle childhood and adulthood -- and allow yourself hold on to the best of both in your life, right now.

That's when you will receive the greatest Christmas gift possible. And, it will be truly Christmagical.

It will be, quite simply, a very merry Christmas.

When Life Meets The Fairy Tale

At this time of the year there are so many expectations. It's as if we've bought into a collective fairy tale, and it goes something like this:

It's Christmas morning. A large, happy, healthy, attractive, educated, polite, loving family gathers in tasteful bathrobes and slippers under a tastefully decorated tree in a tastefully decorated, expansive home. Beautiful little children are appropriately excited, and the well-behaved, well-groomed dog lazes nearby. A fire crackles in the hearth.

Let's put you in the scene, now. Your handsome, loving spouse sits with you on the couch, your head on his shoulder, his arm around you. He pulls out the most beautifully wrapped box. You open it, eyes wide. It's perfect. You kiss passionately. Your attractive and healthy parents link arms and smile in appreciation for such a wonderful son-in-law. His equally attractive and healthy parents beam smiles in their heroic son's direction.

And everyone lives happily ever after, having had The Perfect Christmas.

Nice story, huh? But real life often fails to match up to this fairy tale, and we feel somehow cheated, disappointed, less than, or maybe even mad.

Because real life can be messy.

Maybe this is the first Christmas you've had to plan, organize and shop for -- because your wife will be in Baghdad this year.

Maybe this year you won't get a gift from your spouse -- because his Alzheimer's has robbed him of the ability to think of you as anything but that nice woman who visits him every day.

Maybe this year you'll be alone on Christmas morning, because it's your ex-spouse's turn to have the kids.

Maybe there won't be a perfect present under the tree because there's not enough money for the tree, let alone gifts.

Maybe you'll be missing your mother, who passed away in the spring. Maybe you're, once again, the only single person in the room on Christmas morning. Maybe you're in the middle of chemotherapy this Christmas.

There are plenty of ways your life is different from the fairy tale, huh? No wonder so many of us are snappish, moody and melancholy.

Because our lives don't match the fairy tale.

And that, my friends, is OK.

Because if your wife is in Baghdad this Christmas, you can still give your kids the best Christmas you know how to. And your spouse with Alzheimer's? His gentle wonder that such a nice lady is there with him is a precious gift. And when your kids spend Christmas morning with your ex-spouse, you are telling your kids that their own relationship with their dad is important -- can you be more loving than that?

In all of our real lives, there are great challenges -- and great gifts. When you feel angry or depressed or unhappy that your real life doesn't measure up to the manufactured, unreal fairy tale -- take heart. Just accept your own, unique life -- messy, loud, fractured, silly, disorganized, untasteful. Because it's all yours. And it's perfect, just the way it is.

Honestly, would you have it any other way?

So, love it because it's yours. Love it because it's very real. Love it because love is what Christmas is all about.

Whelmed

The other day a woman reported that she was feeling overwhelmed -- she was trying to do so much that she felt she wasn't doing anything well. Was multi-tasking the answer, she asked?

No, I answered, multi-tasking doesn't really work. Try mono-tasking instead. Do one thing at a time. Do it thoroughly and do it well. Then move on to the next thing. Mono-tasking.

When you're multi-tasking -- trying to do two or three things simultaneously -- you end up doing none of them well. Your stress level goes through the roof.

Face it, there's just one you. You have the wondrous ability to give 100% of your attention to something. Multi-tasking asks you to divide your attention, and you end up with less than 100% on each task -- and this is where errors occur... you end up spending more time fixing the resulting problems than you would if you gave the task all of your attention at the start.

Reading a memo while on a conference call when researching data and preparing a Power Point -- you're not truly engaged in any of these tasks and probably won't have a great result. How much better to be truly present for the one minute it takes to read the memo, then participate fully in the conference call and make time later to do thorough, comprehensive research before you design the Power Point. That seems doable, manageable and calm, doesn't it?

The opposite of overwhelmed, of course, is underwhelmed. Underwhelmed is what teachers generally feel about the work product of boys in their first year of high school. Wives are often underwhelmed by the anniversary gifts their husbands proffer -- word to the wise: just because Hallmark says it's the Paper Anniversary doesn't mean paper towels are an appropriate gift. Hallmark is referring to the wrapping paper around the gift. Honey, every anniversary is the jewelry anniversary. That's all you need to remember.

Underwhelm is often about our expectations of what others should be doing. And you know I have a deep dislike of the word 'should'. In my life, I simply replace 'should' with 'choose' and feel so much happier. Rather than saying, "Charlie shouldn't have shopped at 7-Eleven on Christmas Eve for my gift", you can get to a level of acceptance when you realize Charlie chose to give you that box of frozen burritos -- and you can ask him about that choice.

(By the way, Charlie, see above reference to The Jewelry Rule for Anniversaries. Same rule applies to Christmas. You're welcome.)

Overwhelmed. Underwhelmed. It occurred to me this week that no one ever says, "I feel whelmed." We're always over or under.

Wouldn't it be lovely to answer the question, "How you doing today?" with "I'm whelmed, thank you very much! And you?"

Whelmed -- the point at which you are neither over nor under. You are not fruitlessly multi-tasking. You are balanced. You are paying appropriate attention and spending appropriate time on your tasks.

You are whelmed.

As the holidays approach with their attendant stressful opportunities for overwhelming tasks and underwhelming performance by others -- reduce your stress by choosing to be whelmed. Whelmed one task at a time.