How was your Thanksgiving? Did you eat all the food? Did you have all the pie? Did you hang out with all of your closest family or friends? Playing board games, watching football, or doing whatever it is your gang does? Feeling at home and just being you.
Whatever your Thanksgiving plans were, I hope there were food babies, seconds, and much much love. Plus, lots of relaxation, because in our go-go-go world, a full breath in is hard to catch, let alone a true day off that isn't full of cleaning, yard working, grocery shopping, and crossing off items on life's ever growing to-do list. I hope you were able to take a moment and soak it all in. Relax, breath, and EAT.
I spent this Thanksgiving in Montana, on my families Christmas Tree Farm, trying my best to do just that, live slowly, and Montana makes that easier. It is no internet and 86 year old grandpas who are out on the tractor all day long. It is a sky full of stars and seeing your breath on a cold cold fall night. It is people who work with both their hands and their heads. It is a Christmas Tree field kissed with early-morning frost and bathed in golden sunrise light. It is mountains every direction you look and forgetting to charge your phone. It is nights without TV, but filled instead with card games and the lost art of conversation.
Montana makes slow-living easy. In a world that screams bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger adventures, bigger relationships, and bigger credit limits, why is it that this humble, slow, and simple way of life becomes so appealing?
Thanksgiving often marks the beginning of the whirlwind that is the holiday season. There are parties to be had, gifts to be bought, food to be cooked, and decorations to be hung. This season adds complexities to our lives and makes us run at an even faster pace, crossing off to-do items left and right, but it also brings so much GOOD.
This weekend I soaked in the outdoors, friends, and family. I took the dogs for long walks among the trees, and played cards with three generations of family. I didn't work, clean, or cross anything of my list, but sometimes the best thing to do is the wrong thing to do. I went after that slow-living life and soaked in every minute of it.
May we all have the courage to not do it all, but to relax and soak in each and every precious and fleeting moment while we have it. Maybe that means cooking up a slow simmering soup in your kitchen with your grandma, daughter, or mom; or it might be an early morning cup of coffee in a quiet place with a new devotional; or perhaps it is a quick walk around your neighborhood taking a moment to think, listen, and breath.
Whatever it is, whatever you need, I pray you have the chance to pursue that slow-living life, to go after the real and authentic, in the midst of this nonstop thing we call life.
Leave a Reply