I am busy in the throws of Christmas plans for the shop. I will be decorating next week for our annual Open House, and so my head has been flooded with multiple ideas and projects. Glitter, glue, papercutting, ribbons, what to do with this and that, and how to pull it all together to reflect the joy of the season, desiring to inspire the sacred in the midst of a commercial environment. And so it lies, between our Net Loft Open House and Advent, a very special holiday that I hope and want to not get lost in the sea of the oncoming season. It is hard sometimes, because before the brown and rusty gold have a chance to fully mature, I sense the red and green encroaching everywhere, pressing on us, demanding our attention.
For me, I just want to savor these remaining fall days. I feel a need to take the time I need to settle myself, to organize my projects, to reassess my goals, to reflect on that which is around me and for that which I am grateful to God; to make this be a time to cast aside all the differences within my family and come together, bake, make place cards, eat and rest in one another’s company. I don’t want to miss thinking on Thanksgiving, even though everywhere I turn I am being told to think about Christmas. In light of this I have not abandoned my half finished wool appliqué fall apple candle mat, in hopes that it will be ready for the culmination of fall at our family Thanksgiving celebration. I will continue to savor the sweet autumn images of apples, acorns, pumpkins, and squirrels, and I will take the time I need to make this Thanksgiving be a special and meaningful celebration and appreciation of our family’s many blessings and how best we can be a blessing to others.
Enjoy your remaining fall creative projects, and, in doing so, I hope that this time will also be for you, a time for thinking on your own Thanksgiving, and provide for you that necessary reflective and inspired calm before the storm of the oncoming holiday flurries.
