From Chaos To Calm- The LET. IT. GO. Christmas Challenge

In case you aren't familiar with Karen Ehman, Karen posts on Proverbs 31 Ministries.  She's also written several books.  Most of all, she has a simple 5 day LET. IT. GO. Christmas Challenge I'd like to encourage you to sign up for.  Watch the video and sign up for the emails.  It's a short commitment and it's not laborious.  You'll be glad you signed up after the very first email you receive.

Afterwards, I'd love for you to come back to this post and share how Karen's message changed your life.

Personally, it made me think more about the big picture.  Christmas (and any time for that matter) isn't about the tiny details.  It's about the people, the memories, the time spent together.

I'm sure many of you can relate to the story I'm about to tell.

Putting up the Christmas tree just the other day, C was assisting in putting ornaments on the tree.  He was doing such a great job of spreading them out, but of course could only reach so high.  At some point I realized very few ornaments were left for the upper half and I tried to get C to slow down and allow me to hang some on the upper portion.  He didn't like that so much.  I thought about it and realized, what's the big deal?  So, most of our ornaments are concentrated on the bottom half.  Ornaments are to be enjoyed and the lower half is where C can see them.  I backed off and we continued to hang the remainder of the ornaments.  Yes, some branches have three ornaments on them, but honestly, he did a great job and what made me happiest is that he was having so much fun.  It's the simple things we don't need to complicate or perfect.  A perfect tree won't make my life better or worse.

You must also know that I quickly moved on from having a perfect tree.  But what got me more, was that every day since, c removes some ornaments and rearranges them, looks at them and plays with them.  For some reason, this bothers me.  He's very gentle, so I'm not worried about breakage.  However, again, it's a personal issue!  He's not hurting anything, he's enjoying the ornaments and having fun!  I've resigned to letting him be.  He should enjoy the tree and ornaments.  I should too.