Simplicity

I absolutely love decorating our home each year for Christmas.  I always get a bit emotional as I decorate because so many of the ornaments I pull out of the boxes hold so many memories.  Many are from dear friends who are far away.  I think of them fondly and sometimes wistfully as I hang those ornaments on our trees.


Each year I add a few new decorations and ornaments to our collection, and use what we already have in different ways and in different places. I like traditions, but I also like change.  And a lot of how I decorate for the season reflects the season of life we are journeying through.

If I was to "psychoanalyze" myself (which for better or worse I do on occasion, lol!) I would say that much of the way I decorated this year reflects a deep and increasing - and sometimes unmet - need for simplicity in my life.  "'Tis the gift to be simple.  'Tis the gift to be free."  That's what the old Shaker song Simple Gifts (1848) says, and I agree.  And thanks to Jesus, I am free.  As for simple, well, I have a ways to go.  But I am making efforts to enter this Christmas season with an uncomplicated and uncluttered heart.  Just typing those words makes me realize what a challenge that is.  Especially for a woman living in today's very complicated and cluttered world.


But I will continue my journey, stopping often to sit and sip cocoa by a sparkly tree in our cozy home counting my blessings, pondering a Baby in a manger who changed everything, and relishing the way these moments by the Christmas tree with the cross in the center make me feel, and listen, and breathe, and dream of simplicity.


Perhaps that's even where I'll find it.

Christmas Blessings From Our Home To Yours,

Jennifer