My Year of Shmita: November Update

Christmas was wonderful (recaps coming soon) and today is Boxing Day in Canada. Which means, per my new family tradition, it’s Turkey Dinner Day!!! A few years ago I decided I didn’t want to wrangle a big, complicated meal on Christmas Day – a day I’d rather spend savouring my family and relaxation – and I couldn’t be happier with that decision. All of which provides a nice segue into discussing my Year of Shmita.

While I haven’t been reading much literature on rest and Sabbath lately, when I was jumping in with two feet last winter, I noticed a common trend. Most people writing about Sabbath – at least from a personal, non-academic standpoint – spent copious amounts of time away from the general fray of life. Admittedly, they ended up writing a book about the process and might have needed that alone time to write about any topic. I digress.

While I am tremendously fortunate in my time allowances (visiting my parents twice – solo; working part-time from home), I don’t feel like I am ever struggling to find things to fill my time. And by early November I was already starting to feel the holiday rush creeping in…

Some thoughts.

Here is a post I wrote about announcing my Year of Shmita and my January, February , March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and October recaps.

MONTHLY NOTES

One of the reasons November felt extra busy was NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). It is a big commitment of time – not because of the writing (for me it was only one extra post a week), but because of the extra reading, commenting, and engaging. In light of this being a year of rest, I started with strategies to make it more manageable.

• No posting or commenting on Sunday. While I sometimes read posts on Sunday – and occasionally saved a few to comment on Monday morning – for the most part I didn’t engage with anyone online on Sunday.
• Don’t respond to every comment. For the most part I responded to most comments left on my blog, but not always and even that little bit of grace to not always weigh in was helpful.
• Don’t comment on every post. Ditto above; I tried to only weigh in I had something meaningful to add OR it was one of my regular blogs where I always leave a comment.
• Don’t read every participating blog. I could have felt guilty about not reading the blogs of everyone participating, but I didn’t. I knew what I could handle and stopped there. No regrets.
• Am I having fun? I wanted to ask myself this question throughout the process. If the answer was No, something was amiss. I didn’t want to end up treating a gift like a burden.

And it was fun. Having a plan really helped me feel like I was in control of what I could manage.

More generally, I thought a lot about remembering it’s okay to take a break from a regular routine. For example, one Sunday I was sick and didn’t even try to get ready for church. I’ve often dragged myself places when I’m not 100% well. But there was no need! Another Sunday I woke up and could tell I really needed extra sleep. We skipped the first service and stayed home lounging in our PJs and savouring our coffee. We went to the second service instead and nothing bad happened!

Extracurriculars. I feel like I have spent an inordinate amount of time in my vehicle this fall. Both kids only have a handful of things they’re doing, but now that they’re older there is more driving involved. Some things that help maintain a reasonable balance:

• Carpool. Indy is in choir with two friends in his grade. We carpool every week and this offsets the responsibility. When Belle was playing middle school volleyball this fall, I traded drives with numerous people. Again – it really helps!
• Say no. There were certain things I just said No to.
• Plan for success. I go through a shocking amount of scratch paper writing and rewriting schedules. I KNOW I could go digital, but I love having lists I can actually touch and manipulate.
• Skip an event. We missed at least one basketball practice simply because it was dark and cold and neither Indy – nor I – was keen to leave the house at 7 pm. Guess what? Nothing bad happened.

Christmas Creep. There were lots of Christmas things that started to crop up in November. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by Christmas to-do’s. So I asked myself one of my favourite questions (a la Tim Ferris): What would this look like if it were easy?

• No new pictures for the photocard. We have been on lots of fun family adventures this year. I don’t need to put us in coordinating outfits and fuss over hairdos and go somewhere at the golden hour. We’ve done that before and it’s great but…completely unnecessary. I do like to have photocards, though, so I made one using a random assortment of pictures taken throughout the year.
• Decorate early. I started earlier than ever and LOVE it. I am always itching to get Christmas decor down as soon as the holiday season is over. So why not extend the cheer? Also, by decorating in early November, it meant that was one less thing to do at the end of November when things like the Live Nativity and extra Honour Choir practices were ramping up.
• Use boxes. I talked about this in a favourite things post, but I have loved using decorative Christmas boxes (when I receive them, I keep and store them for reuse). They look more festive – and stack much better – than gift bags, and they’re great for holding oddly shaped presents.
• Streamline gift tags. For almost all my gifts, I used simple brown paper tags that came in a set of 250 for $2.75 at the Dollarstore. In the words of The Lazy Genius, I decided once.
• Savour. Remember. Let Go. I tried to reflect on all three options when I could; there are a limited number of Christmas seasons left in my life. I don’t want to look back with regret that I rushed them all away. I want to remember the good times of Christmas past. I have some great memories and there is a special Christmas magic that’s only available to kids under ten. And let go – perhaps the hardest for me. Letting go of (some) responsibilities. Letting go of (some) expectations. Let’s just say all three are a work in progress.

I didn’t read anything directly related to rest/Sabbath/Shmita in November because I was far too busy reading blog posts!

Only one more monthly recap to go. It’s hard to believe I’m nearly at the end of an entire year that has had an underlying theme of rest. Do I feel more rested? Yes, to a certain extent. I think more importantly, I have learned new skills that will be advantageous for the rest of my life. One of my goals for the holiday interlude is to mull over the whole process of my Year of Shmita and figure out what I do with it moving forward. Stay tuned.