wintering vol 1

new mug edition

A few years ago, my friend texted me at the beginning of December and said, “December 21 is the darkest day of the year, but every day after that, we’re going to have more and more daylight and then it will be spring.” That simple text helped me frame my whole winter experience. I still struggled. Chemical imbalances can’t be fixed easily, but it spoke to me in exactly the words I needed. It was truth. It was hard. But there was hope. Winter wouldn’t last forever.

That’s what this wintering series is.

I’m not going to tell you to bootstrap it and change your mindset because, again, seasonal depression is a very real chemical thing that we can find joy throughout, but we can’t will it away.

I’ve tried. And then my doctor pulls my bloodwork and says, “Ah, I see you’re trying to bootstrap your vitamin d, again, eh?”.

There’s a little mindset tweaking that can help. I’m calling this series “wintering” because wintering sounds so much more comforting than “WINTER”. I mean the “r” in winter is just so mean. WintER rhymes with BRR and I’d rather just not think about the BRR part of it and think about the other things. “Winter” sounds like something that happens to you. “Wintering” sounds like something you’re doing on purpose.

Make it sound as pretentious as you want.

I will be wintering this month.

Oh, sorry I didn’t text you back. I was wintering.

See how that makes winter feel a little less like an attack?

Now that we’re all on the same page, we’re all wintering, let’s get to know each other. I think it’ll be nice if this can be a little more chatty than it usually is on here. If you’re reading this in your email, click on over to the post in a browser so you can leave a comment. Tell us where you’re reading from and what winters are like where you are!

In this first wintering volume :

• Something to do

• Something to read

• Something to watch

• Something to think about

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Something to do

For this week’s winter activity, we all need mugs. New-to-us mugs. You need a mug that is just for this winter. A mug that you look forward to holding in your hand and drinking something warm from every morning. We’re going to build a habit of drinking something warm every morning and we’ll talk about the importance of joy and expectations with routines like that, but FIRST, get a mug! My favorite spot to find cool mugs is always a thrift store, so take a trip there, if you can, this week. Bring the whole family and let everyone pick out a mug (they’re usually only a dollar or two). If you already have a mug that you love, get another one! All of the activities I’ll share with you are more about the process of doing things than the result. Gotta keep moving and having things to look forward to, so plan a little trip to the thrift store (or wherever you want to look for a mug) and on Friday, we’ll have a show and tell over on instagram and we can show off our mugs.

In the meantime, here are some that I found on Pinterest that are pretty, just for a little inspiration.

via forged + found

via stone haven pottery

If you need an idea of what to put inside the mug, I am going to insist that you head to the store or get on amazon and order Harney + Son’s Hot Cinnamon Spice tea and Califia almond milk with coconut cream. Make sure you get the creamer in the white and green bottle, unsweetened, not the vanilla flavored one. This is very important. Sweeten if you want!

my latest thrift store mug. it’s an elephant mug, with the head hollowed out, to hold your tea bag when it’s done steeping. strange and unnecessary, just the way I like it.

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Something to read :
These are books that I’ve personally read and loved. Feel free to share books you love in the comments!

Frederik Backman is my absolute favorite modern author. His character development is just *perfection*. This story is so heartwarming. I could read it every year forever and never ever get tired of it!

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry

for the little kids :

Bear Feels Sick
Sleep tight Farm

for the bigger kids :

Pax by Sara Pennypacker

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Something to watch :

I am a cozy movie connoisseur and I have a master list of the movies I love to watch when I just need to snuggle up with a blanket and a cup of tea and not be overstimulated by action and too much plot. Here are a few from my list and where you can stream them.

For adults :

Begin Again (Netflix)
When Harry Met Sally (Hulu)
Family Stone (rent on Amazon Prime)

For kids :

Home Alone (Netflix)
The Fox and the Hound (Disney +)
Matilda (Hulu)

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Something to think about :

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father off lights, who does not change like shifting shadow” James 1:17

We love big, loud, chaotic Christmas mornings. I do most of my shopping for the kids at second hand stores because we can stretch our dollar further. As they get older and their interests stick around for longer than a season and they aren’t so hard on their clothes and toys, we’ll do things a little differently, but for now, this is how we do it. And we love it.

We love the wrapping paper chaos.

And the giggles.

And the sticky cinnamon roll hands all over everything.

And the quiet that happens when the kids are in their rooms playing with all the new toys they just got.

It’s my absolute favorite morning of the year.

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of stress and hoopla built up around Christmas under the guise of intentionality and focused spirituality. Lots of shame being tossed around about making Christmas about anything other than the birth of Christ and making your kids entitled and materialistic by giving them lots of gifts at Christmas.

But kids don’t become entitled and materialistic because of what’s under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, they become those things because of the way you parent them.

When you are purposeful and intentional in your parenting all year long, Christmas carries a lot less weight. Their faith and attitude towards life doesn’t rise and fall on what happens at Christmas. That happens in the thousands of seemingly insignificant moments of their lives with you. Christmas is one day.  An important day! But just one day. You have the rest of the year to instill values, character, and an understanding of the significance of Christ’s birth.

In our family, we like to build an expectation for Christmas. We love that our kids look forward to the day and start talking about it months ahead of time. We are building traditions and expectations and excitement. We love that when they think of Christmas, they think of family, gifts, food, relaxation, movies, fun, and lots of cold mornings and cozy nights. We aren’t stressed that the excitement about those things will take away from honoring the birth of Jesus.

And here’s why :

First - the stress is gone because we spend the rest of the year being intentional about what gifts actually are. In ways kids understand, we stress that every good thing we have in our life comes from our good and kind God and those gifts have nothing to do with things. They know that God is our provider and they also know that even if we don’t have things or money (we have spent more years without either of those things than with them), God is still good and kind and we are still rich. The focus of our home is joy, togetherness, forgiveness, kindness, and generosity. Not things. So when they get a bunch of gifts on Christmas morning, it’s just fun.

Second - We build the excitement for the day in their hearts and because of that excitement, they have some kind of understanding when we talk to them about the longing in the hearts of the people of God for their Messiah to come. As we get closer to Christmas, we’ll talk to them about how long the week leading up to Christmas feels and ask them questions about what they think the Israelites were feeling when year after year, the promised Messiah didn’t come. What would it be like if your grandfather’s dad told him that Christmas was coming, but it didn’t and then he told your dad that Christmas was coming and your dad told you that Christmas is coming but none of you ever experienced Christmas and then one day, with very little dramatics, Christmas came. All of a sudden, a whisper, a star, a rumor that the Messiah had been born.

All that to say, it’s my unwavering opinion that what’s under the tree and what happens on Christmas morning doesn’t have to carry as much weight as we think.

Zach and I used to only give our kids three gifts each on Christmas morning because that’s all that Jesus was given. It was great, but we were doing it because we thought it’s what good Christians did. It was an arbitrary restriction we gave ourselves for really no good reason. It wasn’t like it was led by the Holy Spirit or some deeply held conviction (both good reasons for doing things!). It’s just what we thought we should do so we did it. But it didn’t fit with who we were and how we felt about Christmas, so we stopped doing it. We reserved the right to change our mind and we did! I just thought, why are we making this about what Jesus was given and not what he has given us, which is, of course, impossible to replicate in physical gifts. What the wisemen brought to Jesus was the equivalent of $4 MILLION U.S. dollars. Even if we all had $4 million dollars to give to each child to represent the gifts the wisemen brought to Jesus, it wouldn’t come close to honoring the sacrifice he made in becoming human and sacrificing his life for us.

It’s nice to think about what gifts were brought to Jesus, but Christmas is about what he brought to us. And what he’s given us is worth celebrating joyously. Honor the birth of Christ with your joy and what brings your children joy, whatever that is. The point is - it doesn’t matter what’s under the tree. Your traditions are for you and I believe fully that the Lord delights in us as we delight in him. So however your family chooses to celebrate, do it with joy and intention and don’t let someone else’s style of Christmas make you feel guilty about yours. There are no rules. Just enjoy it!

Every good gift comes from the Father and the gift of Jesus’ life is more than his birth.

I’ll forever be an advocate for celebrating Christmas in a way that brings your family the max amount of joy because max amount of joy is what all the earth and all of the heavens had on the day Christ was born. And max amount of joy is what we will have when Christ returns and reigns again and heals all of the wounds the brokenness of earth has caused. Just as the Israelites were eager for the Messiah to arrive, we are eager for him to return. So, we celebrate with joy now and we’ll celebrate even more joyously then.

that’s all for today, friends.

See ya on Friday, mugs in hand!