7th Day of Christmas with Glynnis Whitwer
Welcome to our 5th annual 12 Days of Christmas giveaways!.
Each day I’ll feature one of my Proverbs 31 sisters offering a recipe, idea or memory and giving away a prize for the day!
Today’s guest?
The organization/time management chick and writing whiz:
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Am I a Christmas Failure?
A few years ago, December found me feeling rather un-Christmasy. It had been a very hard year, filled with one challenge after another. And when it came time to start the Christmas season, my reaction was anything but merry.
My emotional and physical tanks were completely drained, and creativity seemed a distant dream.
Boxes of Christmas decorations sat in a closet. Christmas cards (bought on sale the prior year) waited on the counter. There were unmade cookies, unplanned parties, and unseen neighborhood light displays.
As I looked at my calendar and house, all I saw were things I hadn’t done. I felt like a Christmas failure. After all, some women manage to get everything done, and look good doing it. Why couldn’t I?
The discouragement of my “failures” stole the joy of the Christmas season.
But then God reminded me of what I had done:
- I had loved Jesus with all my heart.
- I had served God faithfully in a ministry (Proverbs 31) that impacted millions of women for Christ.
- I had cared for the needs of five children (two of whom needed hours of work each day in academics).
- I had run a home-based business that cared for the needs of my family.
- I had supported my husband so he could run his business.
- I had attended every holiday concert and sports event that month that my kids were in (and wrestling meets last for hours).
No magazine took pictures of my house that year. Martha Stewart didn’t want to know my secret for amazing home-made gifts.
And my friends and family forgave me for not sending out Christmas cards for the second year in a row.
That Christmas God showed me all the exterior stuff is nice, but it doesn’t matter that much to Him. What really matters is if my heart is fully submitted to His calling on my life.
His calling for me is to serve with a joyful heart. And apparently it’s not to decorate or craft.
So, if your house is still decorated for Thanksgiving, and if your presents will be wrapped in Target bags, and if your neighbors get a warm greeting rather than an assortment of homemade cookies and candy, it’s ok.
You aren’t a Christmas failure.
Just keep focused on what’s really important – and that’s Jesus. In a world filled with discouragement, He’s our only hope for peace and joy. And as much as I like homemade cookies and presents wrapped in satin bows, those don’t satisfy like my Savior.
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Glynnis Whitwer is on staff with Proverbs 31 Ministries and is one of the writers of Encouragement for Today. Her newest book, I Used to be So Organized, was released last fall. Glynnis, her husband Tod, and their five children live in Glendale, Arizona. Glynnis would love to invite you to visit her at www.GlynnisWhitwer.com where she blogs weekly and is in the midst of a series called “Sweet & Simple Christmas.”
Glynnis would love to give away two books. The first is her book “I Used to Be So Organized” and the second is “Seek” by Donna Jones.
To be entered in Glynnis’ giveaway, tell us one area in which you have ever felt like a CHristmas failure. I’ll go first: wrapping! My sister-in-law’s packages are gorgeous and creative. Mine are more like “brown paper packages tied up with strings”
Remember, you have until Sunday night December 16th to comment on all the posts. One grand prize winner will be chosen from among the gals who post on all 12 days!
(Gonna wait til tomorrow when there is more traffic to announce the grand prize)
Timely Christmas cards—-and my photos are never perfect!
Christmas letters/cards. Others in my family write newsy things about each person in the family and have a lovely Christmas photo. I don’t know why but I haven’t sent out cards the past three years and just feel guilty instead.
Christmas cards! I buy the cutest cards, but I send out only half of them. I know that the day of Christmas cards in the mail is drawing closer and closer to a close, but I really love the idea of sending out these lovely greetings. I fall short often, but I do try.
Decorating – I love to decorate… with my kids. LAst year my youngest went to kindergarten and I didn’t have any little people to help me with the decorating. Usually I am decorated by the 1st od December, here it was the 15th and I hadn’t started. I usually hang the lights outside and last year I let my husband and the boys do that. I just didn’t want to decorate. THen finally on the weekend before Christmas when we went ot get the tree, things snapped back to where it should have been!
I would love to create the “perfect” atmosphere for Christmas . . . .beautiful decorating, low lights, soft music, scent of hot cider simmering in the kitchen. Sometimes I feel a failure because I can’t put it all together and create the perfect atmosphere.
My cousins show up christmas morning dressed to the nines….i rarely match, have bed head and blood shot eyes from staying up late the night before doing last minute things.
Putting worldly traditions and expectations before loving my God and “enjoying” the family He has given me.
Handmade edible goodies (that of course have been created with my children to create a memorable experience for them to fondly look back on). Or not.
Hint for wrapping…set up table in living room in front of tv with a football game or action movie. Hand box, wrapping paper, scissors and tape to husband. Seriously. I did all the shopping and figuring out. He can at least help wrap! That way he gets to know what we are actually giving people too. :)
Failing at Christmas seems to happen much more often in the past few years. I fail at having presents bought and wrapped…I fail at getting to spend time with my family doing the fun family things…I fail at baking all the cookies I want to get done…I fail at trying to have homemade things as gifts…but my biggest failure is forgetting that Jesus is my reason for the season….He really doesn’t care about all the rest. I just need to tell His story.
Christmas letter with pictures is where I fall short. But God knows what happens every day of my life and my families.
My Christmas failure would be Traditions. I never developed and nurtured any except for Christmas Morning… get up hurry and open gifts, hurry and get showered, shined and dressed, hurry and drive 2 hours to spend Christmas Day with my sarcastic family for about 3 hours, hurry and drive 2 hours back home to collapse into bed… All the while listening to my 2 sons complain about how BORING it is and how they never got to play with their new toys. I have always regretted not being able to have a relaxing Christmas Day at home with a yummy breakfast and all the goodies and love and comfort of those traditions. I keep hoping that someday it will happen. My boys are now 21 and 18. Maybe with their children someday.
For me it would be baking treats. I enjoy baking, but there is always so much going on and to do that I don’t get around to baking treats that I would like to give to others.
Baking. It always just seems like so much of a hassle and such a mess…. and we really don’t need sweets in our house.
I really like the idea of sending out Christmas family photo cards but it hardly ever gets done.
When my children change their ‘lists’ before Christmas, and that prized ‘McKenna’ doll is sold out! It is hard to say that you ‘failed’ to your children. Another area of ‘failure’ is the Christmas meal. I am not a good cook, but I try. It just seems that the meal never comes together like I think it should, then I am reheating. :(
Blessings to you all!
KK
just seeming to not have those “quiet” moments to focus on why we even celebrate Christmas
I’d have to say decorating.
My house is a poster child for the hick songs about the mobile home with the freezer on the porch. (I don’t string lights and leave them all year long though.) Do to an allergy to cut trees in the house I have a little faux tree on my antique sewing machine and this year is the first year I decorated before Dec. 18.
Home Schooling I just wanted to get over with the semester and if there was a decoration the kids made in lessons that was good enough. I felt like Glynnis so many years. I am thankful for my little tree this year and don’t care that my Christmas Trailer wouldn’t even make a Country song. Anyone got a pink flamingo? I think we need some of those in our yard.
the decorating of the house…I keep saying I want to decorate the outside of my house with all kinds of lights and then you walk into our house and have it beautifully decorated. My house is decorated nice, but nothing really matches….but then again that is what makes it OUR home. We have mostly decoration that have been passed down from my grandmother and mother…..I actually wouldn’t change a thing :)
I used to feel the need to buy things for people to show then that I love them and that I was thinking of them at Christmas tine! I would consider that a big Christmas fail!!!!
That I don’t make 10 different kinds of cookies to hand out to all my friends and neighbors.
Cutting down a real tree
Since my children have grown (mostly) and there are no young ones around, I have had a difficult time getting excited about Christmas…this years failure…I haven’t done much shopping or decorating…just feeling kinda blue…it seems like I may be disappointing those I love because I’m not with the program. But the biggest thing is that I don’t want to be a failure at relating with Christ this Christmas…I want to move closer to Him, but am not exactly sure what that looks like…
I dont think I have felt like a Christmas failure yet. I know each year there has been something I have forgotten but I usually just make peace with it so I dont stress.
I think wrapping because I’m always doing it Christmas eve until past midnight and am then exhausted the next day!! So I vow to do a little each weekend prior so the load is not so much that night when all I want to do is think of a time over 2000 years ago when a baby was born in a manger – into this world He cam for US! So that WE could be saved!