The first Monday of Advent is at least as good a day for New Year's resolutions as is 1/1.
We're feeling like making some this year, maybe because we can build on a recent family history of success. With Mark's help, 2008 was the first year I ever kept one -- to get to the gym twice a week. A couple of years ago, Mark resolved to commute by bike or foot 50% of the time, and he didn't manage it at all that year, but since then he's gotten the percentage up to 80% or more. Those habits seem to have stuck pretty well, too. (We'll see after we have the baby in late January...)
The craziness of modern Christmas present exchanges (rant omitted for brevity) is on our mind in a new way this year because for the first time we are not traveling back to Ohio, what with the baby due in January. On the one hand: we will miss our relatives and friends that we usually see at Christmas and New Year's. On the other: The chance for a quiet Christmas at home and to celebrate Advent all the way through in our own parish is really appealing. On the third hand: Hey! I have to "do Christmas" this year! At heart, I am a holiday slacker. Yeah, there's a Christmas tree somewhere in the attic. And a lot of ornaments we haven't used since we got them as wedding presents (that happens when you get married in December) .
Family at Thanksgiving gave us presents to take up to Minnesota for the kids to open under our tree, and we'll wrap some for the kids too; Mark and I don't usually give each other Christmas presents, but maybe we ought to? There are things each of us want and/or need; suppose we bought the same sorts of things we might buy anyway this fall and wrap them up and enjoy them as presents? After all, that's rather the way things would go for many families: instead of buying what you wanted as soon as you decided you wanted it, and maybe as soon as you could afford it, you might wait till Christmas so it could be opened as a present.
We were thinking maybe a good resolution for us this year would be to save up a lot of our buying of wish-list items (both for children and for ourselves/each other) for "feast" occasions. Christmas, for instance, and Easter, and maybe one more in the summer or fall, like Assumption or Nativity of Mary or something. It would have the added benefit of maybe getting us more in touch with the year cycle, too, another resolution I am perpetually nearly making.
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