Vision Boards are all the rage in the new year when people want to creatively visualize their dreams by cutting and pasting pictures and words to represent their goals in a visual collage.
Why not design a Belief Board instead?
Here we are in the beginning of yet another year full of promise and hope. Have you noticed that you are already falling back into old habits? Have you chosen your One Word to guide you toward more meaning this new year?
Before You Plan Ahead, Reflect Back: 10 Questions to Review Your 2024
Before you dive into setting resolutions, goals, and dreams for the upcoming year, take a moment to pause and reflect on the year that’s just passed. To truly move forward with intention, it’s essential to look back at the journey you’ve been on.
Why Reflect?
Reflection is more than a look in the rearview mirror—it’s a chance to celebrate victories, acknowledge growth, and uncover lessons that can guide you into the New Year. After all, you can’t know where you’re going until you understand where you’ve been.
Here are 10 meaningful questions to help you review your 2024 and set the stage for a purposeful 2025:
O Christmas tree. O Christmas tree. How lovely are thy ornaments…
Every December, we find ourselves wrapped up in holiday traditions. My favorite ritual of the holiday season is adorning our Christmas tree. I am fully aware that it has very little to do with our reason for the season in the birth of Jesus Christ, but I do love its presence nonetheless.
If the ornaments on your tree could talk, do they have stories to tell?’
Is your tree adorned with memories that represent your life?
A friend showered me with meaningful gifts and conversation as she couldn’t attend Nix’s adoption day festivities. One present that she gave me was this beautiful Christmas ornament.
It is perfect because we didn’t have a symbol gracing our tree for this momentous occasion. My friend and I then beamed, talking about our similar Christmas trees, full of life and memories.
Our legacy, memories, and purpose will only live on if we intentionally share them.
You can most likely tell all the tales represented on your tree. But, can anyone else in your family? We are the memory keepers, but we also must be the storytellers.
The passing of time dilutes our memories, so we must write them down. Likely, we will not remember one day why we ever bought that coffee cup ornament in the first place in the world.
5 ways to intentionally bring more meaning to your Christmas tree
1. Date your ornaments
Use a small black sharpie and date the bottom or side of ornaments you collect along your travels or that bring significance to a particular year. Adding this personal touch is a simple way to bring meaning to your treasure.
2. Store special ornaments with a photo or handwritten note telling its story
Decorating your tree will be a walk down memory lane as you pull out each ornament to hang upon the branches.
Store meaningful ornaments with a photo or notes that go along with them. It doesn’t have to be an essay, perhaps just a handwritten note on the back of a photograph. Do this so your precious family collection will continue to mean something to others when you’re gone.
Stories keep us present to the past. Without meaning, your little treasures may be discarded tchotchkes one day.
3. Chose an ornament representing every year
When our kids were born, I started collecting ornaments and storing them in decorative keepsake boxes. For years, I chose ornaments for each child until I realized that this is a difficult tradition to keep up when you have many kids and only one tree to display all the fun. So, the kids’ collections are primarily from their first five years of life.
I even started (that being the key word here) ornament collection scrapbooks for my kids so that I could pass on the stories of why each one exists.
Remember that your kids will one day leave and take their ornament collection with them. Just ensure this won’t leave your tree bare and lifeless one day. I loved what this Mom did with her tree when her kids all left home. Why not start incorporating photo ornaments like this now?
4. Honor loved ones who passed away with remembrance ornaments
I have chosen ornaments that represent close loved ones when they have passed. Not that we will ever forget them, but I love that I notice those ornaments walking by the tree and am reminded of that person more often.
5. Purge meaningless ornaments
If no one can recall why you have a particular ornament, get rid of it and make space for one of meaning- unless it simply makes you happy, even with no story attached.
O Christmas tree. O Christmas tree. How lovely are thy memories. Thank you for being a faithful visual reminder every year of all the blessings in our lives. Merry Christmas to you!
What’s the worst word someone could use to describe your child?
There is a slew of cringe-worthy adjectives to choose from, but Entitled would be it for me. Spoiled brat 2019 style. I’m on a mission to parent against this ugly trait running rampant in this me, myself and I generation that we are raising our kids in.
My recent post about 8 things you should stop doing for your teens this school year went wild around the web. Parents are weighing in and while the majority agree with integrating life skills into their kids lives, others have dubbed me uninvolved, lazy and say they feel sorry for my kids.
One reader said, so what do you do exactly if you aren’t doing these things for your kids? So glad you asked…
1. Laugh and enjoy life together
Star light. Star bright. First star I see tonight. I wish you may. I wish you might. Be my date on Homecoming Night.
As if Teenage guys don’t have enough on their plate, they must now come up with a cheesy proposal presentation to ask a girl to Homecoming. He’d better not think of asking her to the dance without at least a decorated poster board in hand.
Why are our sons expected to put on a proposal production to ask someone to Homecoming today?
My post on 8 things you should stop doing for your teen resonated with a lot of people.
The truth is, it is tough parenting resilient kids in today’s culture.
As a stay-at-home, work-from-home Mom, it’s easy to over-parent my kids because I adore them and want them to wholeheartedly know and feel that.
I have to really work at not over-functioning as a Mom.
Raising four not so-youngsters, I’m constantly fighting the urge to over parent. From the time my feet hit the floor each morning to the time I crawl into bed, I am trying to balance being there for my kids and showing up in my own life.
Why is parenting today so much more difficult than when we were growing up?
Or does it just seem that way because we are so heavily involved?
Today our children are so much busier than we ever were as kids. I played high school sports and thank goodness there was no such thing as “club teams” and rarely if ever, did we have hours of homework.
We do a lot of things for our kids that our parents never did for us. We feel bad for our busy kids, so we try and help them out, even when we shouldn’t.
Here are 5 Books that help me when I want to over-parent
1. Stay Overnight at LaPosada Hotel
The crown jewel of Winslow is the LaPosada Hotel! This amazing piece of historic architecture is known as the last of The Santa Fe’s great railway hotels. It has been beautifully restored and I would love to tell you all of the details of this special place, but I don’t want to spoil your visit. The grounds are gorgeous and it’s so relaxing to just walk around and take in all of its beauty.
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