ritual making
We do a ritual at dinner called rose/bud/thorn. Rose is your high of the day, thorn is your low of the day, and the bud is something you’re looking forward to. A few years ago, we added gratitude and learning to the ritual, as in you have to say something you’re grateful for and something you learned or relearned that day. (If you have any cute suggestions for how this can fit into the rose visual, that would be great because asking for everyone’s rose/bud/thorn/gratitude/learned every night is a mouthful.)
We started the learning thing when the kids moved to a Montessori school because they don’t have any homework (probably the top reason we drive 30 minutes to school if I’m being honest), so it was a way of making sure we were hearing about their school day regularly. But it turned into a way for Grant and me to focus on what we learned each day too. So many of ours - and the kids for that matter - are repeats, things we have to learn or be reminded of again and again:
I learned again that I’m always a better human when I don’t stay up too late the night before.
I learned that it is hard to be left out, and I need to remember that when I see someone else being left out.
I learned again that I always feel better biting my tongue instead of snapping back at someone being rude.
I relearned that its better to feel my feelings than to squash them down - but that sometimes I have to wait until I get home to feel my feelings.
Asking the same questions every night forces you to look for things throughout your day to share at dinner. This is a well-advertised benefit of a gratitude practice, but it is true of the question about what we learned that day too. It is like a focal point throughout your day of what to pay extra attention to.
Goal making has, for years, made me prickly. I’m not sure what it is - the bossiness of goals or the idea that there has to be a “there there” or feeling like you have to measure every thing. Regardless, goals make me prickly. But ritual is something I can really get behind. Rituals seem celebratory and holy, in the sense of “set apart.” They are a way to make our days more in line with our values, instead of just another productivity benchmark to cross off of our list. Our dinner ritual helps anchor our days and move us more into alignment with the kind of individuals and the kind of family we strive to be.
Whether we intend to or not, we all have rituals. For me, lately, I’ve noticed that I have a ritual of grabbing my phone right after I wake up. I’ve just fallen into it, and I noticed my days go better when I don’t touch my phone until after I’ve finished making lunches or, even better, after I’ve moved in some way. The fall and winter are the perfect time to reflect on what rituals are working for you, which ones aren’t, and which ones you might want to add or let go of in the seasons ahead.
What rituals are working for you in this season? I’d love to hear your ideas!
Rants and raves
👍Giving books as gifts. I posted some ideas for all sorts of readers on your list on the blog this week. To get more bang for your buck, if you just cut and paste the title and author from the post into this form, Wild Geese will ship them for you (in a cute box nonetheless!) directly - and you get the extra satisfaction of supporting a small business during these hard times.
👎I heard about a family I know this week that found out they had Covid after traveling to see family over Thanksgiving and then flew back home. Ya’ll: we’re nine months into this thing, and if you don’t realize that flying on a plane after testing positive for Covid is a very, very bad decision, I’m at a loss for what to tell you.
👍I accidentally decided to stop giving the President my energy sometime in the last few weeks. I think what he is doing is unequivocally dangerous and even downright evil, and I’m grateful that many people are paying attention and calling him and his cronies out. But my body and spirit were telling me that I just needed to stop paying attention for a bit, and I’m here to tell you that 1) that was a wise decision and 2) it is okay (if privileged) to stop paying attention for the sake of your health.
👍Grant and I watched - and loved - The Happiest Season on Hulu. I wish we would have watched it with the kids because now we’ll probably save it for next to watch it with them since I don’t love watching things over again in quick succession. I’m annoyed it was PG-13 when there was nothing remotely PG-13 about that movie except that the main relationship is a gay one. Regardless, we both highly recommend it! I think I might have a new rule in which I watch anything Dan Levy does, even (especially?) if he just continually plays the David character for the rest of his career. His siloloquy about coming out was worth watching the entire movie for.
👍This interview made me so happy:
Stuff worth sharing this week
I keep trying to write up a list of favorite games of ours for the #covidwinter ahead, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. Maybe next week. In the meantime, Sarah Pulliam Bailey’s lists get rave reviews:
You can view our previous board game lists of the year, starting here: medium.com/@sarahpulliamb… Last year, we chose “Just One” as our game of the year, a great socially distance-appropriate game. If you have friends need...simpler games...this one is very easy to pick up.
Somehow I came across this great piece from last Christmas about Mr. Rogers and consumerism - a great read as we wind down this weird year and look ahead to what comes next.
I am loving this Instagram account - the prayers have been balm for my soul, especially during this weird Advent season we find ourselves in:
I make Turshen’s enchiladas almost once a week, and if you haven’t discovered them yet, I am encouraging you to try them this week, especially if your meal planning is a little sluggish these days. I haven’t met anyone that doesn’t rave about them, they’re pretty easy, and they’re versatile - I’ve made them with ground beef/turkey, with pork shoulder, with black beans and corn as a veggie version, and with chicken as the recipe is written, all of which have been delicious. (If you have extra sauce leftover, it’s delicious in tortilla soup - added in at the end). Related: Turshen’s Now and Again that this recipe comes from is one of my favorites and would make a great Christmas gift for the foodie on your list!
Quotable
"Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me." Audre Lorde 🔥🔥🔥
Seasonal view of the week
My parents gifted us a new piece of “furniture” for Christmas that I recapped on Instagram, and how old I am is directly correlated to how excited I am to fill up the cabinets!
Cheers to ritual making and keeping in the week ahead!
Sara