Finding Peace during Christmas Preparations

As the hustle and bustle of Christmas amplifies I find myself needing to take a moment to breathe and relax.  I have to admit Christmas is harder than Thanksgiving for me.  Thanksgiving is one day.  You prepare for one grand meal, one grand event.  Christmas on the other hand is a whole season.  There are cards to write, gifts to buy, music to prepare (I'm a harpist), cookies, puddings, and menus to plan.  I also contribute food to parties I go to.  It is my favorite season, but at times I find myself liking it less when frustrations from life and preparations mount.  I usually do my shopping early and get gifts shipped out in November, which is a blessing.  I also gather my plum pudding ingredients beginning in October.  However I invariably find myself short on one thing or another and I need to rush to get it in the crazy crowds.  This time it was cheese cloth to cover the puddings.  I had some left over from last time, but not enough.  I also needed a few more raisins.  I went to a major grocery store and asked where the raisins were.  The woman responded, "I don't know if we carry that."  I wasn't asking for smoked goose breast.  Just raisins.  That was how my day was going.

I try and be thankful that I can walk into a store.  There was a time when I too sick to do that.

When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, we had large maple trees that liked to interfere with the plumbing every year in the winter.  I can count many Christmas Eve's when my mother had to get the plumber out to work on the drain in the basement and spew muck everywhere.  After a few times she took it all in stride, and kind of expected it.

I recently saw a TV show where monks who live in one of the first monasteries in Egypt described how to attain inner peace.  He said that we need to be careful and even the people in monastic life can have a busy mind.  He said that prayer quiets the mind.  They mentioned The Jesus Prayer, which is repeated in a mantra type fashion.

          "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

This prayer helps center and calm me.  There are people going through many great challenges and sorrow in our world, and I don't want to get caught up in my own small stuff.  This helps me keep things in perspective.

A Merry and Blessed Christmas to all.