If you’ve ever heard me close an event with my “Bubbles” story, you know that Christmas is my favorite holiday in the entire world and that the Christmas season is my favorite time of year. I love almost everything about this season (I can’t stand mall parking lots of the crazy crowds). I turn on special Christmas music playlists, I have a nightly hot chocolate with a candy cane, I wear my Grinch pajamas, and I bring out my advent calendar.
My mom made my favorite advent calendar when I was a kid. She took a few years crafting each individual ornament and each individual pocket for an ornament. I’d have to take turns with my siblings hanging up each ornament on the felt tree. In addition to figuring out which of the ornaments I’d get to put up on my “turn,” I seriously spend hours over the course of the Christmas season counting and recounting the days until Christmas, the number of nights I’d have to sleep until Christmas, and sometimes even do the math of the number of hours, minutes, and seconds until the magical day.
Even now I still cannot sleep through Christmas Eve night–still excited that Santa will be there soon. Yes, I’m 35.
I tried (unsuccessfully) to lobby my mom to either give me that advent calendar or make me a duplicate when I left for college/graduated from college/turned 25/got married, but the original (and best advent calendar in the world) still hangs at my parents house. In the process of the moves we did when I was young and life itself, the pattern simply became lost and even if my mom found it the time investment would be far too vast. As much as I’d love that calendar, I’m happy that she chose instead to get a Teaching Credential, a Masters Degree, complete several marathons and triathlons with Team in Training, and invest so much of her time and energy into the lives of the students she teaches and the people she’s mentored in TNT.
So after recognizing the writing on the wall (even though I still ask for it every few years), I purchased my own advent calendar at a Hallmark day after Christmas sale. It’s bright, inviting, and super fun. Now my wife and I take turns hanging up ornaments and I love it.
Late last night just after turning off the lights on our Christmas tree, I looked back at the Advent Calendar on the wall. I stared at in for a few moments received a brief surge of excitement that paralleled the same level of excitement I had as a kid, and 3 things occurred to me.
Three Lessons from the Advent Calendar:
1. We need to have something in our lives that causes excitement.
I’m not talking your status quo level of excitement–I’m talking childlike energy excitement. Something where we countdown days and hours. A few years ago I realized that I wasn’t creating as many of these moments in my life so I started setting up some bigger goals and some bigger wish list items.
As we look to 2015:
What do you want to accomplish?
What do you want to experience?
What do you want to add to your life?
A friend of mine recently recommended that you always have two vacations on the books. While I don’t quite subscribe to that same particular point, I do like that we have things that we look forward to and bring us joy–things that get us out of the bed in the morning and push ourselves through the rougher days.
I look at what my mom has accomplished since my childhood. She consistently added something more to her life: a credential, a Masters degree, a new athletic challenge and each of these provided their own countdown moments. Each of these were bigger life opportunities and experiences that genuinely made her excited and allowed her to push through the long, tiring days that each required.
2. The really great things in life take time and don’t happen instantaneously.
As a kid I remember thinking every December 1st that 24 sleeps would take FOREVER and that Christmas would NEVER come–and yet it always did. As an adult, I realize that my favorite day of the year is often December 24th as it is the perfect combination of anticipation and excitement where I still am surrounded by the people I love most in the world. On that day, I love the waiting. I think that we just need to to find the waiting as we look to accomplish more in our lives. It took my mom a great deal of time to reach each of her accomplishments and it will take you a great deal of time as well.
But my mom’s smile as she turned in her last assignment or as she heads to the big dinner before the race just proves that the waiting makes it worth it–it makes it mean that much more.
3. Find the ways to celebrate in the waiting
This year my wife surprised me with a bonus advent calendar. Each day I have a small gift to unwrap. I’ve received several small sweet treats, a few fun experiences (we went to watch Die Hard–the best Christmas movie–in a theatre and tonight we’re reading some of my favorite Christmas books), and a beautiful sailing ornament celebrating one of my big accomplishments this year. This is the first time I’ve had a daily gift as part of an advent calendar and I love it as well (luckily my wife thinks she’s going to make this an annual tradition for me). That small daily reward makes the waiting a little bit easier.
Can you find ways to celebrate and reward yourself during the process?
So often we wait on one big reward when we achieve a goal, but what are some of the smaller things you can do right now? No, I’m not saying go buy a cheeseburger every time you had a great workout at the gym, but maybe you could save that TV show you want to watch for after your workout or while you stretch.
My sister also earned her Masters Degree in Social Work the same time as my mom and the two of them would often have study sessions together. Sometimes they’d go get a manicure after a particularly hard day of study, or they’d just plan a nice lunch break together. It wasn’t every time, but it was enough to help them navigate the busier days.
So what can you do?
As we countdown these final days of 2014 and look to 2015, I hope that you too find something to get excited about in the new year, take the time to reach that experience or accomplishment, and find ways to celebrate along the way.
