It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......

... at least that's what my Dean Martin christmas record tells me, and after visiting my neighbours Ev and Alan last night, I'm starting to think that my "4-ball-bonanza" energy-saving christmas decorations - hanging from the dining table light - are a tad on the grinch side of the festive spirit. (Both pics below, I'll let you guess which are which).

Being a fan of home-made gifts and a low-fuss approach to most Hallmark occasions, I gave Ian strict instructions not to turn our front yard into a Greenhouse Theme Park about a month ago (he has a stash of lights from Christmases -past) - but I have to admit, Ev and Alan and my grandparents' generation are probably the last keepers of childhood wonder and fantasy, and I secretly love the fact that they light up our lives... (neighbourhoods, planet, solar system...) once a year.

I've decided to call 2008 the Year of Change - I've had no shortage of that personally and professionally myself, with equal amounts of spectacularly good and not-so-good results! I signed off an email to Mum about a month ago, with "life is great". The reply came back:

"How can you say that? Businesses are folding, prices of everything are going up, there's political unrest and upheaval everywhere... and the environment is in a bad way".

I thought about that. When I rang her next, we talked about it in terms of a big global detox and being in the early stage where all the old stuff gets stirred up and dies off if it doesn't fit the new healthier regime. Like all detoxes, it has to be a bit painful at first, but the results are usually good, and lead to a much healthier way of being.

For example, we know our addiction to fossil fuels has been unhealthy, and we have to get off the junk and use cleaner, greener energy, but at the moment whole societies are built around this addiction - and that has to cause a bit of a rumble in the transition stages of the detox. We know the 'old' profit-first global scale approach to business has created unhealthy, unfair and wasteful methods for delivering food and shelter to the world's people - so it makes no sense to continue supporting that. And we know our own lives need to be as simple and spiritually-centered as possible to be able to focus on the changes coming at us from every angle as these big entrenched ways of doing things are being given a shake-up. I guess it's a bit like the addage of becoming a human being, rather than a human doing.....we need more time to think during tough times, and as the quote goes...

"People have no time to think if they are too busy making decisions."

So I guess my christmas message [to myself and everyone else] this year, is to stay centered and balanced enough to be able to see straight and think deeply, embrace change, see it as a fantastic opportunity to move forward into [perhaps] whole new ways of being, and celebrate simplicity.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy and rejuvenating holiday break. Reconnect with who and what is important to you and remember, it's the little things that matter.

Jo