Can you feel this holiday hurry, the last weekend before Christmas? It’s also the Winter Solstice, which is called Yule as well, and it’s also the New Moon. You know this gets my woo woo going. I try to weave the magic into my every day normal-ish life.  I will set intentions tonight and I feel that pull to look within on this darkest night.  My father-in-law always reminds me it’s all up from here as the days get shorter now.  I’m a sunshine girl who loves the summer, being outside, toes in the sand, eyes looking skyward with open arms.  The cold winters in the Northeast are not as bad as other places I know, but that wind gets in my bones.  I use the hermit/hibernation time for writing and asking myself to be real…that shadow side of all us exists and we must make peace with her.

Which leads into what I wanted to focus on here with our shadow side, ego, those wounded places within can make us feel like we’re not enough when we get around family this time of year. How does you life stack up next to your sister?  Are her kids more well-behaved?  Is you brother going on an epic vacation and you’re broke?  Are your cousins happily married and you’re divorced?  This is not about anyone else.  This is always about you. It’s for you to choose what to focus on.  Are you true to yourself?  Are you happy?  Is that enough?

I remember many years stressing about getting my kids, parents, in-laws, friends, kids’ teachers and whoever else the perfect presents.  I would even buy each dance teacher of my oldest daughter’s a specific piece of jewelry I felt fit them perfectly.  Doing this on a shoestring budget always made me feel less than, like I wasn’t enough, and my gift wasn’t enough.  As I got into my thirties, I had three kids at that point (five now and yes, I’m done) and I started baking cookies for all the teachers.  I decided I didn’t care if the ate them, gave them to someone else, or tossed them.  It’s the thought that counts.  Seriously, it is.  And if I’m honest with myself, the early school years I was trying to impress or be in the teacher’s good favor with my gift…or it was for the other moms to know about.  I wanted to be the everything mom.  The first year I did the cookie presents, I thought I was Martha Stewart and ended up with flour in my hair for real and the cookies looked perfect but it wasn’t fun.  My cookies this year looked like a Pinterest fail and it wasn’t even that the kids decorated those ones.  I had to buy the already rolled dough so it wasn’t even like I didn’t roll the dough thin enough.  They turned out like obese gingerbread men with the defined shape.  They also spread so much, that they connected on the cookie sheet while baking and when pulled apart had slanted heads.  I used a gummy candy thing to give them red hair so they were ginger-bread men.  My icing was runny even though I made it like I normally do.  I’m hoping one of the teachers gets a chuckle when they see one of these guys.  I can just say the kids made them.  Hehe!  It’s enough though.  The holidays are not about present contests with anyone.  It’s a time for enjoying our friends and family whether you celebrate the birth of Jesus, Hannukah,  Kwanzaa, Yule, or just Santa, it’s about presence not presents.

Blessings to all.  You are enough.