Let It Snow

I have one of those knock-you-down winter colds. My head aches, my sinuses feel like they are black and blue, I'm freezing one minute and hot the next, and my whole body just aches (even my hair hurts). Lucky for me there is no where I have to be today and, even if there was, we are having our first heavy snow of the season. It has been snowing off and on for over 24 hours and the winds are supposed to pick up later today. What isn't closed has been cancelled.

Coming as it has right before Christmas, this cold combined with the weather is forcing me to stop all the pre-holiday hustle and bustle and just be. That's not so easy when there are gifts still to be bought, a menu still to be planned and bought for, cards that still need to be bought and sent out (yes, I'm still old fashioned in that respect). My head has other plans. It says I need to be still so it will stop pounding. Being still also means my thoughts as well. No sense sitting still just so I can work myself up in a frenzy worrying about what isn't getting done. So I am looking at this cold as a gift, an afternoon to just be. Watching the snow falling silently outside the window, a woodpecker working on the suet in the cage hanging next to the feeder, a cup of ginger-lemon tea at my side and a warm cat on my lap ... not a bad prescription to have to follow.

Another gift this cold has given me is the opportunity to be a Mom to the child inside of me. I'm watching a stack of old Christmas movies (yes even the children's movies) and trying to remember the awe and magic of a child's Christmas. I've been having a problem "feeling it" this year. Maybe this cold is reminding me that we all need to nurture the child inside us during the holiday season and remember to gift ourselves with love, patience and compassion. Sometimes we grow ups get so buried in the events of everyday life that we forget to look for the magic that is always around us if we just stand still long enough to connect with it.

So today I lift my cup (of tea) in salute to the magic of  being still, of believing in Christmas, and in the 5 year old inside me that is thinking popcorn would go really well with my move. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

And so it is.