Making the Spirit Bright

Fa la la la la…la la..la…la la!

Ginger, our Elf On A Shelf, was a little naughty the other day with Cinnamon, her pet reindeer.

Oh! Hi! Merry Christmas! And Happy New Year!

Never mind me…I’m just feeling pretty good about Christmas this year…that’s right. I’ve got the Christmas spirit – in spades. Want to know my secrets?

Here they are…when you are spending your life with a funeral director, there are a couple of key things you need to do to make your spirit bright during the holidays:

1. Define Your Joy.

What makes the holiday joyful for you? What makes YOU happy? What makes your kids happy? What special observances, traditions, practices, etc. make you feel joyful during the holidays?

Too many of us fall into shoulds when it comes to holidays. We should go shopping on black Friday to save money on things we don’t need. We should bake 30-dozen cookies. We should drive 6 hours for a white elephant gift exchange. We should sit through the entire Messiah. Should. Should. Should.

Maybe some of your shoulds bring you joy. But have you ever cleared out all of the noise and truly defined what makes you deeply feel and recognize the meaning of the holiday season? How would it look? How does it feel? What does it include?

When you define your joy and build your holiday plans around the things that are deeply meaningful and important to you, your season will be bright no matter where you are, who is with you and how it goes. Because when YOU take responsibility for your own joy, you can create it no matter what is going on around you.

For me – my Christmas joy comes from living out a true Advent in preparation for Christmas. I love to decorate, do seasonal activities like attending the Nutcracker with my kids, driving around to look at lights and baking cookies. We have a naughty Elf on a Shelf who comes with St. Nicholas on December 6. We keep the fires burning, we welcome others into our home and we watch Christmas movies throughout the month. My car radio is set to Christmas music and I soak in the season.

We give to our neighbors and people we don’t know on the Giving Tree. I always put some coin into the Red Kettle and I try to live out the life that I know I am meant to. This defines my joy.  How do you define your joy?

2. Create Your Own Traditions.

Once you define your joy, use the definition to create your own traditions. Many of us do things around the holidays because “it’s always been done that way.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of fondue on New Year’s Eve and decorated cut-out cookies using Grandma Edith’s recipe. But there are new traditions we have created for our family that we can do no matter what the call schedule is like. There are things that we do that we can plan around visitations and burials. There are special decorations, daily readings and fun games we play every year. These are our traditions.

Our traditions are often just for our little family. Sometimes, we include other people, sometimes we don’t. Either way, these are non-negotiable, happen-every-year, things you can count on at the Prange house that make our Christmas and New Years Eve joyful. I count on them, our kids count on them and my funeral director counts on them. They make our holidays special, unique and ours, no matter what is going on around us.

Sure, we still try our best to keep the traditions of our forefathers. Yes, we try to attend gatherings, meet up with extended family and do things on other peoples’ schedules. But if we’re truly honest with ourselves, we would probably admit that these things are frosting on the cookie of our own traditions and if we don’t get to them, our cookie will still taste delicious.

When you create your own traditions to flex around the schedule and demands of funeral service life, you build a holiday season that is merry and bright.

For me – our traditions include an annual Prange Cookie Extravaganza where we make 6

Prange Cookie Extravaganza 2015!

kinds of cookies all at once. The kitchen gets destroyed, the oven is on all day and it’s wonderfully exhausting…and delicious.

We usually decorate for Christmas on the Friday after Thanksgiving and listen to Christmas music the whole day. We also watch the Hallmark Channel Christmas movies nonstop. When we decorate our tree as a family, we listen to music, dance around and leave the lights out until the entire tree is done and then have a big, ceremonial switch “on”. It’s so much fun!

We keep an Advent Wreath on our coffee table and light the candles every Sunday. Our Elf on a Shelf comes with St. Nicholas on December 5/6 and takes our letters to Santa with him. We always pick a couple of ornaments off of the local Giving Tree and my kids pick out gifts for other kids their same age who are not as fortunate this year. We always attend church on Christmas Eve and take a night hike to look for reindeer before tucking into bed.

The key to our successful traditions is that they happen in or near our home, are flexible around a call and service schedule and don’t require a ton of outside coordination with people who don’t understand the demands of my husband’s job. And when things go awry, we retool and keep the tradition later.

3. Make Decisions and Plans – and Stick To ‘Em.

Remember the Maxwell House coffee commercials where one family member brews a pot of coffee and wakes up a household of family members gathered together to celebrate Christmas? You know that scene where 20 people tumble out of various rooms, beckoned by the scent of perking java and gather in the kitchen to sip and sing like the folks in Whoville? Then they spend the entire day cooking, eating, fighting, sledding and watching It’s A Wonderful Life together, a big gushy pile of love on the couch?

You remember this? So does your extended family. And you will never, ever be able to fulfill this dream for them.

Alright…maybe you will…once or twice. But it’s likely, if you are spending life with a funeral director, that it won’t be every year and you’ll disappoint them more than you’ll fulfill their dreams of a long, extended, gushy family Christmas visits.

And that is why Guilt is a regular part of the holidays when you’re spending your life with a funeral director.

Extended family and friends will send you one-way tickets on guilt trips all over the country when they want to make plans and you aren’t able to accommodate all of them. They’ll annually ask why your funeral director can’t “just ask off”. They’ll get belligerent when you suggest alternative dates and even times for things – so that your funeral director can attend too. They’ll question your motives when you decline a Christmas morning brunch because your director can’t travel two hours away because he is on call.

They’ll balk and whine and make you feel really, really, REALLY bad for ruining THEIR holiday.

But here is the thing – YOU are not responsible for THEIR happiness.

Let me repeat – YOU are NOT responsible for OTHER peoples’ happiness.

Once you make a decision, a plan and set your itinerary, stick to it. Once you know your director’s schedule and you create a plan together – stick to it. Fold your own traditions into your plan. Do the things that bring you joy. Connect with others. But stop getting on the guilt train.

The guilt train will show up every year, if you keep getting on it. Once you stop taking the trip, the train won’t come by. Once you put your foot down, stick to your plan and honor your own traditions, others will get the message.

And this is nothing to feel guilty about. Again – YOU are not responsible for OTHER PEOPLES’ happiness!

4. Joyfully Host.

And if all else fails, invite everyone to your house.

I love to hostess parties and gatherings. I absolutely adore turning my kitchen upside down, donning the fancy stuff and giving Grandma’s china a work-out.

Inviting others to join us makes it possible for my funeral director to attend and partake while he is still working. He can come and go – and go again – while the rest of us celebrate and enjoy each other’s company.

Be forewarned, however, that if you do this, you’ll be flying solo on host-duty sometimes. And you need to be OK with that. This is the reason I titled this strategy “Joyfully Host.”

If you decide to open your home for the holidays, do it from a joyful place. Don’t begrudgingly invite other people and then spend the days leading up to it becoming a horrible ogre of annoyance and fatigue. Don’t rage at your spouse, become a holiday-martyr and never whine about having too much to do.

A joyful host seeks to open her home to other people to share happiness. We make a fuss over little things like a coffee pot that starts brewing at 6 a.m. and never stops. We put a mini Christmas tree in our guest room and fill candy dishes with multi-colored kisses. We make sure Santa knows our guests will be with us and insures that there is a gift under the tree for them (and their dog). We include everyone in everything. We create quiet downtime. We take pictures. We laugh. We create menus, prepare things ahead of time and fill our fridges with favorites. We have a pile of old movies ready for sharing. We make everyone feel welcome, loved and warm. And in turn…it makes us feel welcome, loved and warm.

I am a big fan of making a fuss over little things. I honestly cannot understand the folks who don’t decorate or put up a tree because no one else will see it. They are living in their home every day! They’ll see it! It’s kind of like wearing nice underwear. Just because no one else sees it doesn’t mean you should wear nasty, hole-filled under things. Be pretty for your own sake. It’ll change your life!

Anyway…if you truly want to fill your season with brightness, consider joyfully hosting other people. This is a great way to keep your funeral director involved, derail some of the guilt trips and have a wonderful holiday on your own terms!

And go easy on yourself. Pre-packaged, frozen quiche and cinnamon rolls taste just as good as from scratch when they are prepared with love. A wide assortment of finger foods from Costco are a special treat that’s easy to prepare. Cookies for dessert at every meal are welcome! The point is to host from a heart of joy and happiness, making others feel welcome and loved…and have fun yourself too.

No matter how you choose to make your season bright this year, just remember that everything you do and everything you feel is a choice. We can choose our reactions and be pro-active. Or you can be annoyed, wait for things to fall apart and absorb mean guilt. I for one will joyfull host and brush the rest of it off and laugh all the way…ha! ha! ha!

How are you going to make your spirit bright this year?