The Kregel staff had a great time at three homeschool shows this spring! Here are some pictures from our travels:

In Duluth, Minnesota:

A Look Inside God's Special Book

In this powerful new sequel to Across the Wide River, the Rankin home is still a beacon of freedom on the Underground Railroad. Johnny, the seventh of thirteen children in the Rankin family, is growing up quickly and in 1837 is eager to take on the same responsibilities as the rest of his family. But Johnny's father and his brother Lowry think Johnny is too young and too hotheaded to help with something as important and secretive as the Underground Railroad. Johnny understands the need for secrecy, but sometimes the secret is just too good to keep to himself! This engaging novel for young adults offers a further glimpse into a dark period of America's past, and profiles the courageous and godly people who helped bring about its end. Click here for more info about the book.During her childhood, Stephanie Reed's family would often pass through Ripley on their way to her grandparents' home. The signs she read there about the Rankin house were what prompted her to write Across the Wide River and The Light Across the River. After working for nearly a decade with the Dayton Metro Library, Stephanie is now a volunteer spotter for the National Weather Service. She lives with her husband and two children in Dublin, Ohio.

Calling all soon-to-be college students! College can be a fantastic experience, but there's so much to prepare for! Author and speaker Jonathan Morrow knows all about the college scene, and wants to help out new students. Here's some great advice:

There I was, standing in the parking lot looking up at my dorm. I had finally arrived . . . at college that is. And after filling out a pile of paperwork, I was the proud owner of a key that would cost me $15 to replace if lost—but it was to my own room. I walked in and was greeted by the sweet smell of industrial strength disinfectant, cinderblock walls painted pale blue, a metallic bunk bed, and a yellowing bathroom that four sets of roommates would share. Along with my roommate, Dave, this was home my first year of college.

Cymbals are rhythm instruments made of metal. Hitting the metal pieces together makes a very loud sound. In Bible times, cymbals were played when people praised God at the Temple. Cymbals were played at the beginning or ending of a song or when people weren't singing. Why do you think cymbals weren't played while people were singing?

"David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals."

Greetings!

An excerpt from Celebrate Simply by Nancy Twigg (Kregel Publications, 2006).

It’s ironic that our modern Valentine’s Day celebrations are so far removed from the original purpose and intent of this special day. Today, Saint Valentine’s Day is a time to remember our sweethearts and celebrate romantic love. While there’s nothing wrong with this focus on romance, this kind of celebration is very different from how the holiday began. At its inception, February 14 was set aside to remember two Christian men, both named Valentine, who were martyred for their faith.Nancy Twigg is a self-employed author, freelance writer, Christian speaker, and homeschooling mom. Besides self-publishing two books and having an active speaking ministry, she edits an online newspaper, freelances, exercises, and still has time to shop for bargains at yard sales and thrift stores. Nancy lives with her husband and daughter in Knoxville, TN.

Read the beginning of the story "There's Nothing to Do!" in the post from February 5, 2008!

Finding Joy in Helping Others

(taken from Beginning with God: My Very Own Devotional by Steve T. Barclift)

“Why’s that, honey?” asked Mother.Ralph delighted the girls with stories about his and Virginia’s career as missionaries in Mexico.

Children's author and illustrator Phillip W. Rodgers is trying to make big theological questions a little easier for kids to understand. WDEF News 12 in Chattanooga followed Phil as he talked with children at a local church about how big God really is.

Find out more about Phillip Rodgers and the Discovering God series, by visiting the Discovering God Series Web site.

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Meet Susan K. Marlow, author of the Circle C Adventure series for tweens. The third book, Andrea Carter and the Family Secret, has just been released. Along with writing books and teaching writing classes for kids, Susan is a homeschool mom and blogs on homeschoolblogger.com. She gathered up dozens of questions from homeschool moms by asking, “If we were enjoying a few quiet moments over a cup of tea, what kinds of questions would you and your children want to ask an author?”
Here are some things homeschool moms and kids want to know about Susan, writing, and the adventures of Andi Carter.

First of all, do you think writers are born that way, or can someone who isn’t drawn to writing when they were young learn to become a good writer? 

The wonderful thing about people is that they change and grow from the moment they’re born. Sure, some take to writing more naturally than others, but I think fostering a love of reading from an early age goes a long way in laying the foundation for writing. I’ve noticed that most young children love to tell stories and try to write them down. But something happens as the kids get older. They lose that joy and end up with the idea that they’re not “good” writers any longer. Adults can learn to be good writers if they rediscover the joy of story. A good writing teacher can get them excited about writing.

Who inspired you to write, and when did that happen?

My fourth-grade teacher opened up a world I’d never considered before—outer space. The “what ifs” inspired me to write stories about going there. Also, television was new back in the 60s, and the stories they told made me want to write my own stories about my favorite characters doing new things.


How long was it from the time that you knew you wanted to write to the time you actually began to write?

Oh, about a minute or so. As a ten-year-old, if I wanted to write something, I just wrote it. However, if you’re asking about writing professionally, I’d say about 40 years. I never had the drive to become a “published” author. I just wrote stories because I liked to write stories. It’s a blessing from God that He intended my stories to go farther than my file folder.

Did you have to learn how to write? Did it come easily?

I don’t remember learning how to write. I read and read and read. And I watched TV. A dramatic television episode has a hook, 3 acts (each ending with a cliff-hanger, so folks don’t change channels during the commercials), and a last scene that ties things up. Looking back, I guess I just imitated what I was drawn to in a good story. I didn’t consciously think about it. I just knew what felt right when I wrote my stories. When I started thinking about submitting them, I learned from other authors to limit the points of view in my stories (no more “Meanwhile, back at the ranch” scenes, like they have on TV), and how to tighten things up to make the story shine.

Do you get thoughts for your books throughout the day, or do you set aside a particular time to come up with ideas and story?

Neither, unfortunately. I wish I were that organized. Usually I get ideas when I’m falling asleep or just waking up. I’m too tired both times to write them down. This is not the best way to generate ideas. I have many moments of panic when I can’t remember what I was daydreaming about.

What about your Circle C Adventures? Why did you decide to write this series? Did you set out to write one book to see if you could, or did you know there would be more to follow?

I wrote a story about a girl, Andi, her palomino mare, Taffy, and her adventures on her family’s ranch in 1880. Not to see if I could, but because it was in my head and I had to write it down. I knew there would be more, because she did lots of fun things that needed to written down so I could read her adventures again.   


How did you pick the main character of your books? Is Andi Carter based on someone you know?

OK, I may as well confess. Yes, Andi is based on someone I know. She’s . . . me. Or more accurately, who I would like to be if I could choose. I know the West is glamorized, and I probably wouldn’t really want to live back then, but that’s what imagination and stories are for.

What about your other characters? Are there people you know in real life similar to your characters, from which you draw for your stories?
Yes. Nila Garduño from Long Ride Home is based on a dear Hispanic friend whom I taught English for 5 years. She told me about her childhood in a poor village in Mexico. Andi’s older brother Chad is more than a little similar to my oldest son, Chad. Andi’s friend, Cory Blake, is drawn from my youngest son, Ryan.

How many Andi Carter books are roaming around in your head? And which one is your favorite?

I probably have five more stories that are in various stages of production: finished, half finished, or in scattered scenes (as in “Oh, cool. Here’s a neat scene that would go great in a book some day. Quick, write it down!”)
If I had to choose, I guess my favorite is Book 2, Andrea Carter and the Dangerous Decision. There’s a special place in my heart for my “firstborn.” Yes, I wrote Dangerous Decision first, and originally in first-person. I was on a Louis L’Amour Sackett series reading binge, and I was in love with the first-person viewpoint. It was also the first story I wrote on the computer (Commodore 64 dinosaur). I wrote it back in 1991. Before then, I wrote everything with paper and pencil. My husband said I should give the computer a try. I never looked back! Another reason I like Dangerous Decision best is because Andi’s whole family is part of the story.


Where did you come up with the idea for the newest book, Andrea Carter and the Family Secret?

I heard a story from a friend about how her 15-year-old son left home when her daughter was born, and they never heard from him after that. I found the account strange and sad, and I thought, “What if that happened to Andi’s family? What if an older sister suddenly returned out of nowhere, along with her 3 rowdy children? How would Andi cope?”
Do you spend a lot of time researching aspects of your book for accuracy? For example, how do you know how much things cost back then?

I’ve spent hours making sure of my historical facts, especially about the town of Fresno: the founding date, what was actually there, the name of the newspapers, the names of some of the businesses. I visited the library in Fresno for old newspaper articles; I drove around the foothills to get the “feel” of the area and where things are. Maps, old photos, and timelines have proven indispensable. Reading accounts of happenings in the area during the 1880s helped me with the general idea of “money” facts. A small, insignificant mention of the price of something in an old first-hand story stays with me. The internet is a great place to discover these interesting tidbits of history. 


How long does it take you to write an Andi book?

Depends on the book. Long Ride Home took over a year. I got stuck right after Felicity and Andi’s confrontation in the corral and had no idea what would happen next. So I put the story out of my mind. One day, it just came to me how to proceed, and I wrote the rest of it in a couple of weeks. My newest manuscript, a story about Andi in San Francisco, took me two months to write. For me . . . that is miraculous. I usually like to ponder more before I write things down.

Who designs your book covers?

A fantastic team of graphics folks at my publisher, Kregel Publications. However, quite by accident, I ended up supplying the actual photo for the first book cover. I wanted the team to have an idea of what Andi looked like, so they could draw a scene, and they ended up using the photograph. The covers for books 2 and 3 also use photographs of my young friend, Jessica.
You have an on-line writing workshop on homeschoolblogger. It is so cool that you do that for our kids. Why do you do the workshop? What inspired you to offer it?

I love to teach, and I love kids. Plus, I know that teaching subjects like writing is one of the hardest tasks a homeschool mom faces. Writing isn’t one of those “toss ’em a self-pac and let ’em go” subjects. To make writing work right, students must want to write, and they need feedback. I teach the course to homeschool groups, and I make it fun. I thought, “Hey, why not post the lessons on a blog, offer free downloads of the worksheets from the book, and let the kids post their ‘homework’ on their blogs?” Upon completion of the 16-lesson course, students receive a certificate of completion for their homeschool portfolios.

It’s just plain fun to interact with my favorite group—kids—and it’s a way to serve other homeschool moms now that my youngest is (sniff) on his way out of homeschooling. A bonus is the exposure my books get by being plastered on my writing workshop blog. ☺

One last question. Do you think you (or Andi or even Taffy) will have an official fan club someday?

I never thought about it before. However, this question has prompted me to consider giving Andi (and Taffy) a blog on homeschoolblogger.com. I think it would be great fun to share “behind the scenes” trivia about her family, the ranch, and possible further adventures. Andi could possibly share interesting things about the Old West with fellow bloggers. A contest or two—who knows?

Susan says, “I would like to thank the bloggers from homeschoolblogger.com for coming up with these unique and interesting questions. It’s been a pleasure chatting with all of you today. Come on over and visit me at my Suzy’s Scribbles blog!”

To visit Susan’s website: www.susankmarlow.com
Her homeschool blog: www.homeschoolblogger.com/SuzyScribbles/
Reach for the Stars writing workshop: www.homeschoolblogger.com/WritingWorkshop/

More than twenty years ago, Rosemary Jensen—the former executive director of Bible Study Fellowship—and three companions arrived in Africa for the first time. There they saw the horrible devastation caused by AIDS. Knowing that they had to do something about this pandemic, Jensen and her companions formed the Rafiki Foundation (rafiki is Swahili for “friend”).

“I have a heart for these people. Even when we are not here, my heart is in Africa. . . . God is concerned about the needs of the helpless.”

—Rosemary Jensen

Beginning as a small group working out of Jensen’s home, the Rafiki Foundation has grown into a multinational organization striving to help the millions of people affected by AIDS across Africa. In this moving account of Jensen’s efforts, author Annie Thorp tells the story of Rafiki and the many lives it has touched.

A Heart for Africa is a story of hope against all odds.

The first six people to send an e-mail to  homeschool@kregel.com will win their very own copy of A Heart for Africa by Annie Jensen. Enter now, before they're gone!

Written by Sheila Wray Gregoire She figured out how to lie about a year before most children realize there is any advantage to it. When they’re two, they don’t understand that if they lie, they may avoid punishment. By age three, though, most have figured out that lying may be a way to escape the time-out chair. My child, when she was barely two, would brazenly claim that she had not eaten that last cookie, despite the crumbs all over her face.

Recently, as we were sitting at the dinner table discussing our homeschooling curriculum for the upcoming semester, I had an all too vivid reminder that we had neglected a vital part of their education. My children were eating like Neanderthals. They couldn’t sit still, they slurped, they used their fingers, they interrupted, they reached, and yes, they even burped. How could this happen? Where did we go wrong? When I was little, I remember my mother saying things like, “Sheila, sit up straight,” or, “remember to use your knife.” Today, I find myself saying, “Rebecca, stay in your chair,” and “remember to use your fork.”

Somewhere along the line we forgot to teach our kids the polite way to eat. Once they had mastered picking up the food themselves and getting most of it in their mouths, rather than in their hair, we figured our job had ended. It’s not that I don’t think manners are important; I think it’s because as a culture, we’ve made dinner a far more casual affair than it once was.

Families used to eat dinner together, and not just once or twice a week, but all the time. Today we eat McDonald’s drive through on our way to errands, if we’re lucky. One recent study from the University of Minnesota found that most families eat together only three times a week, and those meals take far less time than they did even twenty years ago. We sit down, we inhale, we get up.

That’s too bad, because studies also show that eating together has incredible benefits. Teens who eat dinner with their families at least five times a week are less likely to do drugs or be depressed, and are more likely to do well in school. And kids who never eat with their parents are 60% more likely to smoke or drink. It only makes sense; dinner is one of those few opportunities to be together and actually talk. At other times, we’re running in different directions.

In Deuteronomy 6 when God instructs parents to talk about His laws to their kids at all times of the day, I don’t think it’s just because God wants us to lecture them constantly. It’s because He wants us to be with them. Kids internalize our messages when they see us living it out, and they can’t see it if we’re not together. We have to put in the time.

Unfortunately, with shift work becoming more and more common, making time to eat together is difficult. On the nights when my husband is working I find it hard to get excited about cooking a meal. After all, chances are my kids won’t like it anyway, and why cook just for me? Dinner, instead of becoming a family tradition where we all meet at the table, becomes haphazard, depending on who is where on any given night.

Traditions seem old-fashioned, but this is one we should fight to preserve. Dinners provide time to talk about what kids are reading in school, who their friends are, what their plans are for the upcoming year. They let us keep abreast of what our kids are doing and thinking, which helps us to pray and guide them more effectively.

If your spouse isn’t home, you can still try to make the effort to sit down with your kids, even if it’s just around a bowl of Corn Flakes and some scrambled eggs. We’ve started to bring out the good dishes even for regular meals, and to light candles to add some ambience. Aside from delighting my children, this has the fortunate side effect that they render the “yucky green stuff” Mommy puts on food—in other words, the parsley—a little more invisible.

We’re still left with that pesky problem, though, that when it comes to utensils my kids do eat like pigs, except that pigs will eat anything, and my kids will not. So I will try to teach them some more manners so that dinner is fun for everyone. Life is stressful for kids, and if we want to equip them to go to God for solutions, we need low stress time to connect. Let’s start the new year with a renewed commitment to save dinner, so that we can work on saving our families. You can find Sheila and information about her book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum, at www.SheilaWrayGregoire.com.

From a babysitting collective to an herbal bath business, Sheila Wray Gregoire would rather create her own job than have someone hire her--a born entrepreneur. But being raised by a single mom, even one who did a wonderful job, left a hole where her father should have been and fueled her passion to preserve marriages. She and her husband, Keith, "tag-team" homeschool their kids. She also writes for national magazines and speaks across the country, combining the realities of a family with Scripture for real-world, real-biblical answers.

For all you Circle C Adventures fans, book 3 has just arrived! Andrea Carter and the Family Secret by Susan Marlow is full of escaped convicts, wild horses, and lots of adventure! Here's a sneak peek at the book:
When twelve-year-old Andrea Carter brought her golden palomino mare to a skidding halt near her favorite fishing spot, she expected to find a bubbling, splashing creek full of trout just waiting to be snatched up for supper.

by Nancy Twigg Adapted from Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions

ALTHOUGH Michael and I have learned a great deal about creating meaningful family celebrations, we’ve also discovered that we must constantly be on guard. We’ve seen how easy it is to get off track if we don’t stay focused on celebrating in ways that reflect our values. Just a few years ago, I received a humbling reminder of what the meaning of Christmas should be for me.

Our back yard had no landscaping when we purchased our home. The only vegetation we had was a sparse layer of grass with a pitiful collection of young pine trees. Soon after we moved in, my husband, being a man of vision, quickly dubbed this group of trees our Christmas tree farm. With all of those fine specimens of Christmas trees growing on our property, he wouldn’t hear of actually purchasing one the first holiday season we lived here. He insisted we had to cut our Christmas tree from our own back yard.

On tree-cutting day that year, we selected and cut down the least spindly tree of the bunch. It wasn’t exactly the Christmas tree of my dreams and I confess that I made a point of loudly telling Michael so several times. I think he may, in fact, have been a little hurt and disappointed that I didn’t seem impressed by his resourcefulness.

Anyway, the lesson for me came later as my conscience bothered me for not showing more gratitude over our less-than-perfect, yet free, Christmas tree. I was reminded once again that the reason for the Christmas season is not outward displays of seasonal merriment, but rather inward reflection and celebration of what we hold most dear.

As a Christian, the wonder of the Christmas season for me is that a perfect little baby was born into a far-from-perfect world so that “ugly Christmas trees” everywhere could become beautiful through God’s love. In the same way our lights and decorations covered our little tree’s imperfections, God’s grace and forgiveness make those who accept Him whole and complete and perfect in His sight. As God showed His love for us, we show our love to those around us during this season of giving.

When I thought about it that way, our ugly Christmas tree didn’t look so bad after all. Being a bit less than perfect myself, I could, in fact, empathize with the little tree. Thank goodness God doesn’t look for the same perfection in us that I looked for in a Christmas tree! And thank goodness holiday success is not a reflection of how attractive your decorations are or how many presents surround the base of your tree.

This little story illustrates that simplifying the holidays is a continual process of defining and redefining what a meaningful celebration is for you. This principle is true for Christmas and it holds true for other holidays as well. Forget about how you believe everyone else celebrates. The bottom line is simple: What do you really want out of your celebration, and what do you need to do to see that you and your family get it?

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by Nancy Twigg Adapted from Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions

REMEMBER my infamous Grinch impersonation from "An Out-of-Control Holiday Affair"? If ever there was a Christmas machine that needed to be unplugged, it was certainly running willy-nilly at my house that year. Soon after that holiday fiasco, I marched myself down to the nearest library. I knew I had to find something—anything—that would help me learn how to do things differently the next year.

That’s when I stumbled across Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli’s book, Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season. This book should be required reading for everyone who wants to simplify her family’s Christmas celebration. The insights that the authors share in this book were of great help to me in realizing where I’d gone wrong in my efforts to orchestrate a larger-than-life Christmas celebration.

The book starts by examining the traditional roles men and women play in the Christmas celebration and how these roles cause problems. According to Robinson and Staeheli, women are typically the Christmas Magicians. “Like their mothers before them, women are responsible for transforming their family’s everyday lives into a beautiful, magical festival.”1 This responsibility, added to all the other duties women fulfill, often pushes the level of stress beyond toleration.

If women are the Christmas Magicians, the authors explain, then men are the Christmas Stagehands: “Like their fathers before them, men expect to play a subordinate part in the celebration.”2 Although many men are happy to let their wives take charge, they often find that being so uninvolved is a major source of their dissatisfaction with the holiday.

And children, the authors state, are one of the prime targets of the Christmas Machine because toys make up such a large, dependable portion of holiday retail sales.3 Unless parents work hard to teach their children otherwise, they quickly come to believe that opening presents is all there is to Christmas.

Unplug the Christmas Machine helped me to further understand that the cultural norms for Christmas celebrations in our society are inherently flawed. Doing things the way they have always been done simply sets the stage for the very trappings most of us wish to avoid. Thus, having a different kind of celebration requires doing something different. The same old actions bring about the same old results every year unless we make a conscious effort to create a celebration that reflects our desire for a meaningful holiday season.

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SOURCES

1. Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli, Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season (NewYork: Morrow, 1982), 19.
2. Ibid., 39.
3. Ibid., 59.

by Nancy Twigg Adapted from Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions

LET ME share a little story. I call it “The Tale of a Holiday Gone Horribly Wrong.” This incident took place during the Christmas season, but it could have easily happened during any other holiday or special occasion.

It all started so innocently. The heroine of our story simply wanted to make the holiday something to remember for her family and friends. As a one-woman Christmas machine, she was determined to see that the Yuletide holidays were perfect for everyone that year. Great idea, right?

Wrong! What was meant to be Christmas magic quickly became Christmas mayhem. Her desire to have an enjoyable Christmas soon became an obsession with orchestrating the perfect Christmas, complete with picture-perfect meals and perfectly crafted homemade gifts for everyone on her list. Beginning in early November, Christmas became her new full-time job—in addition to the one she already had—since it would certainly take that much time and effort to pull off such an elaborate scheme. All her nights and weekends were spent hunched over her kitchen table, slaving away at the many gifts and lavish menus she felt her perfect Christmas celebration must include. Instead of a joyous occasion to look forward to, Christmas became a deadline that the woman had to meet regardless of the personal consequences.

By the weekend before Christmas, her family’s Christmas tree was still undecorated because she was simply too busy to take time for this treasured family ritual. On the verge of total exhaustion, our heroine resembled a human time bomb ready to blow at any moment. To make matters worse, when her poor husband tried to ease the tension by giving her an affectionate hug, the time bomb detonated. Jerking away from him, she exploded, “Don’t touch me now! Can’t you see how stressed I am?”

As you might have guessed, the rest of that awful day was spent in stony silence. Despite her best intentions, this poor woman could see that her lofty aspirations siphoned the joy and spiritual significance right out of her family’s holiday season. All she wanted to do was make it a Christmas to remember, but it seemed the memories would all be unpleasant. If this Christmas was supposed to be perfect, she sulked, why do I feel so rotten?

Does this sound familiar? Have you ever been so caught up in the hype and hubbub of a holiday that the true sentiment of the occasion completely passed you by? Have you ever let your quest for a spectacular holiday destroy all hope of having a sane holiday? If so, take heart. I wish I could tell you the sad story you just read is merely a tale I concocted to illustrate my point.

I wish I could say that the harried heroine is a fictitious character with any likeness to a real person being purely coincidental. I wish I could say all that, but it’s not true. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m the woman who single-handedly ruined Christmas for my family that year. I’m the woman who made Dr. Seuss’s Grinch look like a nice guy. I’m the one who could have passed for Ebenezer Scrooge’s twin sister.

What Went Wrong?

Oh, my intentions were noble, but my follow-through was pitifully offkilter. As I look back on that event in the Twigg family history, I can see several reasons that it turned into a self-inflicted disaster:

• Too much to do with too little time to do it
• Unrealistic expectations of what makes a celebration memorable
• Inordinate emphasis on gifts and food rather than on spiritual reflection and quality time with loved ones

My story is not uncommon. What happened in my family one Christmas happens frequently as families everywhere celebrate special occasions. Gift giving gets too expensive. Simple family dinners quickly become ten-course meals. Husbands and wives bicker over where to spend the special day—with his parents, her parents, or at home where they both would rather be anyway. Quality family time gets lost in the shuffle, and everyone ends up disappointed.

Let me assure you that there’s a simpler, more meaningful route to holiday harmony. One that involves less stress and less expense. One that leaves family members exhilarated, not exhausted. I can’t say that my family attains this harmony for each and every holiday or that we never temporarily veer off course. But we’ve learned a beautifully simple and meaningful way of honoring the special events and seasons in our lives. We’ve crossed over to the simpler side of celebrating. We can now say with full assurance, “Celebrations can be simple! They can be meaningful! They don’t have to be stressful!”

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by Nancy Twigg Adapted from Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions

REMEMBER THE OLD holiday tune, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”? According to that song, the Christmas season is the most joyful and heartwarming time of the year. But is it really? For many people the words stressful and disappointing are more accurate descriptors. And what about “peace on earth, goodwill to men?” I have experienced many Yuletide seasons that were anything but peaceful and overflowing with goodwill. Haven’t you?

It’s ironic that the very things that are supposed to bring joy to the season are often the source of tension. The giving and receiving of gifts is supposed to be pleasurable, but how can you experience pleasure when you feel burdened with finding the right gifts at reasonable prices in stores so crowded you can barely move? Likewise, good food and drink should enhance the merrymaking. Often, however, we suffer the unfortunate consequences of overindulgence because there’s too much good food and drink available during a short span of time. And the notion that Christmas is a time for family fellowship is hogwash if you don’t have a family or if your family members can hardly stand to be in the same room with one another.

All of these conflicts and contradictions can make your Christmas season far from ideal. No wonder so many people suffer from holiday depression. Even if you aren’t depressed, you may feel confused by anxiety over Christmas or a lack of enthusiasm over the season that’s usually portrayed as magical and marvelous.

“Why Do I Feel This Way About Christmas?”

You’ll notice as you read Celebrate Simply that I have a lot to say about Christmas. That’s because the whole Christmas hubbub has always been rather unnerving for me. Sure, our family has seen a brighter side of celebrating, but each year it takes a conscious effort on my part to drown out all the subtle messages of what Christmas should be. Otherwise, I find myself disappointed because somehow the way things are supposed to be never quite matches the way they really are.

I have to remind myself that this concept of a perfect holiday—one in which every gathering is flawless and each gift I give registers a ten on the recipient’s “wow-o-meter”—is a societal myth. If I judge the success of my family’s Christmas celebration against an unrealistic image of perfection, my family’s celebration will undoubtedly fall short every time.

In times past, before I made this realization, I experienced dismay and dissatisfaction over the Yuletide season. Each year after the last ornament was packed away and all the leftovers were gone, I found myself feeling empty. Where was all the meaning? Where was all the magic, I would think. And why did I feel so blah when I was supposed to be brimming with Christmas joy?

Maybe you’re nodding your head in agreement right now. You, too, may have experienced this feeling of holiday letdown. Or for you, it may have come in the form of ambivalence or downright antagonism toward the holiday season. Whatever the feelings, I believe the culprit is what I call “Christmas overload.”

Somewhere around September or October, retailers begin peddling Christmas joy and don’t let up until after New Year’s Day. Everywhere we look, we’re surrounded by this artificial, commercialized brand of Christmas spirit. No wonder so many of us feel let down when Christmas Day finally comes and goes without the big bang you’d expect after three months of hype.

Christmas overload is like eating your favorite food at every meal for three months straight. Before long, even your favorite dish would become sickening. The same is true with Christmas. How can we truly enjoy something that has been forced down our throats for months? Remember that old expression, “Familiarity breeds contempt”?

I don’t want to sound as though I’m anti-Christmas or that having a good holiday season is not important to me. In the years since we’ve been married, Michael and I have learned to fine-tune our Christmas celebration so that it’s closer to what we really want rather than what we know we don’t want. Believe me, this education wasn’t an accident. It took a few holidays filled with frazzled nerves, short tempers, and way too much stress to help us see the light. Out of desperation, we realized we had to do things differently to avoid Christmas overload in the future.

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