Give Yourself Some Grace {Christmas Sharing Time}

When we were planning out December (yes! we plan), I had some very definitive ideas about what I wanted our sharing time to be like.  I was going to share a cute little story about Christmas and hopefully you guys would comment back with your own stories related to what I was talking about.  But December hasn’t really gone as planned.

Not that December has gone badly.  Not at all.  It was been wonderful and fun but very, very full! With Christmas parties, the Christmas program at church, plus Christmas shopping and then regular life stuff, for some reason my four children still require attention and food and clean laundry. 

Even here on the blog, we have so much going on.  That wasn’t really our original plan but with all our homemade Christmas posts, our Give a Cow t-shirts for World Vision, our new link party and a giveaway thrown in, it’s almost overwhelming!

Does your December feel like it is spinning out of control?  I feel like I’m on a train barreling towards January as fast as it can go.  And I just can’t seem to get it to slow down enough to get everything done.   Not that I am really behind on the stuff that has to get done, it’s more of the stuff that I wanted to get done. 

I didn’t do the secret Santa project I wanted to do with the children.  We haven’t done our baking and delivering to the older people at church.  We hadn’t even finished decorating our Christmas tree until Tuesday!  (I know! I know! You are appalled!)  We didn’t do the special new advent tradition I wanted to start.

It would be so easy to make myself a giant list and run around like a crazy person the next few days and try to cram all these things that I wanted to get done in along with all the other stuff that still needs to get done around here.  

In fact, I’m really tempted to do that right now.  It’s not like I could cut these things, right?  These were the important things I had planned this month.  These were the things that were planned to teach my children the true meaning of Christmas.  These were the intentional moments that were to point to the incredible gift of a baby born in a manger.  A baby born to save us from our sins.  

Somehow these things, these important things, got pushed to the back burner.  These things got pushed aside to attend Christmas parties, do laundry, buy Christmas presents, make Christmas cards, etc.  And it would be so easy to look at the month as a failure.  To look at this season as another wasted opportunity to teach my children valuable lessons.

But I’m not going to do that.  I’m going to give myself some grace.  I’m not going to beat myself up over wasted opportunities or try and cram them all in this last few days before Christmas.  

           I’m going to give myself some grace because, after all, Christmas is all about grace.   <——  Tweet this

We aren’t perfect.  If we were, we wouldn’t have needed Jesus.  We needed God’s grace and he sent Jesus.  And my children don’t need me to beat myself up over not doing everything I planned.  They need the example of grace more!

I want to encourage you to stop what you are doing and give yourself some grace.  If you haven’t done everything you planned, it’s okay.  If you aren’t doing everything to make a “perfect” Christmas for your family, that’s okay too.  And if you’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, STOP.  Give yourself some grace!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

How is your December going?  Do you need to give yourself some grace?  Has it all been perfect so far? (And if it has been perfect come back tomorrow, I have a message for you.  It also applies to the rest of us too.)  I would love for you to share.  After all, it’s not sharing time if I’m the only one talking!

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