In some holidays’ past, I have not excelled at preserving joy and making the most of this really busy time.
Eventually, I realized that there has to be a better way.
So when I received a thoughtful question from one of our community members, Kelly, about this very thing, it really made me pause and reflect on what I’ve done to turn this ship around.
So here are some easy hacks I’ve personally put into place that might be helpful to you.
1. Establish and then manage expectations.
If you kind of act as the keeper of the holidays, then this probably starts with you. Think about what your expectations really are — and what’s also reasonable. This might be even more crucial to consider if you have grown kids — or if you’re divorced. I check the box on both of those. So there are a lot of moving parts.
Ask yourself:
What are my values here?
What do I wanna stick to?
What matters the most?
And what can I let go of?
What’s not worth it?
Establish your own expectations and then communicate them clearly to your people.
Sometimes we don’t even know the little stories that our people are telling themselves in their heads about how the holidays are going to go. This would have saved me 40 million hours of holiday drama.
For example, this year for Christmas, I decided early on that I wanted to do the whole thing differently this year. I wanted a completely different environment than what we had last year. So we are doing a destination Christmas, with very, very few gifts, but a trip. Just me and the kids. I set that expectation early on and now we’re all thrilled about it.
2. Put the word “no” in high rotation.
The thing about the holidays is that there are a million opportunities for fun things.
There are so many parties. There are so many get-togethers. There are so many gift exchanges. There are activities and parades. It’s kind of endless.
Nobody’s being a bad person inviting you to their fun thing. It’s just how it is. And so, again, link it up to your expectations and what you want to experience over the course of this holiday.
Then, just use the word “no” as often as you need to. For example, say: “Oh, thank you so much for inviting me for that. I’m not going to be able to make it this year. I hope you have the best time.”
That’s it. You don’t need anything else. You do not have to say yes to everything, and if you do, you will regret it. The word “no” is your friend.
3. Instacart. I said what I said.
It’s my favorite tool to use during the holiday season.
The one place where I tend to feel like I get in the weeds is cooking. There’s just so much cooking and I’m in charge of my whole family and my home.
And so between all the days and all the meals and all the gatherings and all the special events, I have let the tail wag the dog on this before and regretted it. So I use Instacart. I load up every single thing I need in my Instacart and have it all there.
There’s no mad dash calling my neighbors for sour cream. Or that I forgot to get more butter, or whatever the thing is.
When I have all my ingredients ordered and delivered — and I’ve planned it out — I’m not helter-skelter trying to figure out what to do on the day of. It eliminates so much anxiety and stress off my shoulders.
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These are the tools that I’ve added that have changed our holiday season from being manic and over-scheduled and disappointing to actually delightful.
Pare it down to exactly what you’re hoping to experience with each other and with your friends and family this year. You can do it.
This is a time of year where we have a lot of traditions that revolve around church. So I am thinking a little bit about what YOUR experience might look like if your faith looks different or has changed.
Turns out, there is space and room to worship and connect with God and the birth story of Jesus in other ways. Advent is everywhere you can access it right in your own little home.
My suggestion is to go inward and feel around with a lot of intention and grace about where and how you feel most connected to this beautiful, sacred story that we treasure together at this time of year.
Think about what helps you feel personally connected to the sacred story of Jesus. Maybe that’s walking outside… that’s a faith practice. Maybe it is hosting a beautiful dinner where your conversation is intentional and meaningful with the people around the table. That’s a faith practice.
Maybe it looks like the music that you listen to over the course of the month. It could be what you’e reading, what you’re listening to, who you’re learning from.
What feels precious and sacred and holy to you at this time of year can be anything and it can be everywhere. You are not exempt from it.
Remember: Faith practices in general are meaningful in the broadest sense of the term. Maybe some of your traditions aren’t going to be under a steeple this year. Maybe you’re not going to be involved in the church programs. And that’s okay.
It’s so very normal for your faith to grow and evolve.
This is what I consider to be really faithful work. I see it as someone taking their belief seriously, examining their own practices and biases, and taking a good hard look at structures and where any injustice is baked into the sauce.
There’s no room in this conversation for any sort of guilt or shame. None. If your first impulse is to feel as if you’re doing something wrong, it isn’t true.
I’m thrilled for whatever this journey looks like for you. I honor it and I think it is valuable and meaningful.
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If you’re in the process of asking questions and growing and evolving in your faith journey, I encourage you to dig deeper in my Me Course on Deconstruction and Reconstruction with Evolving Faith co-founder Sarah Bessey. I have a special promotion running on this five-part, on-demand e-course for the holiday season. It is $25 for a limited time only. Learn more here.
Ask any member of my original family and they will tell you: I was the can’t-freaking-wait-until-Christmas kid.
I was all Christmas cheer, zero Grinch. I am not kidding. In my 20s visiting home for Christmas, I would still wake every single person up on December 25th by 6:00 a.m. including my own toddlers.
Growing up, my dad would make us wait for gifts until he read the Bethlehem story from the Bible, and listen, I love Baby Jesus, I do, but no man has ever read slower in the history of literacy than Larry King slogging his way through Luke 2 at 6:13 a.m. on Christmas morn. Make it stop, Holy Spirit.
When I was in sixth grade, I literally could not take the anticipation, and one night in mid-December under the cover of darkness, I carefully opened every single present of mine while my parents slept peacefully in their bed, assuming their square firstborn would never break rules (surprise, Larry and Jana! Your own personal Buddy the Elf committed a Christmas crime). I split the tape on one end with a steak knife, slid each box out of the wrapping with the precision of a surgeon, opened the present without messing up the interior tissue paper, and slid it back and re-taped it. Every. Single. Present.
Christmas letter, circa 1985
Unfortunately, it utterly ruined Christmas 1985 because I had nothing to look forward to and had to fake surprise. (I tell my kids this story every year as a cautionary tale, which never stopped them from snooping once. If they want to ruin their own Christmas, it wasn’t because I didn’t warn them of my errant lawlessness.)
That year, I learned that anticipation is part of what makes the day beautiful.
I didn’t grow up knowing what Advent meant. I’m not even sure I heard that word until I was an adult. Do not get me wrong: my family was all in on Christmas. In our Baptist church world, we had the Christmas cantata, the handbell choir, the children’s program, the Living Christmas Tree, the Bethlehem drama, O Holy Night by the uncontested soprano soloist, the one who always got the big songs (tip of the hat to Erin Wright!). So we handed all of December programming to Baby Jesus for sure, but it was only later I learned the word “Advent.”
Between definition and synonyms, Advent basically means: anticipating, coming, a new beginning, expecting, preparing, hoping, waiting. In different forms, it is like a child counting down the days until her birthday, the senior wild with readiness for graduation, the bride attending to final details the month before her wedding, the woman measuring life in weeks in her third trimester. Something big and important and wonderful is coming. There are preparations to be made, room to be cleared, hearts to be readied, because this big, important, wonderful thing will be the start of something new, something immensely desired, tremendously awaited for. It is the fulfillment of a great hope.
With crazy anticipation, the special thing is finally coming.
Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas (December 3rd this year in 2023) and ends on Christmas Eve. The church in Europe began celebrating four weeks of Advent somewhere in the fifth century, and mainline churches in the west use it as the beginning of the liturgical calendar. There are tons of practices and rituals associated with Advent that vary across traditions, denominations, and regions. Without a singular narrative, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned and why Advent means something special to me.
As clearly demonstrated, anticipation is a very familiar emotion to me. How precious something impending feels dictates the level of excitement leading up to it. No one has to teach us how expectancy feels in our bodies: the giddiness, the hope, the can’t-freaking-waitness of it all. Which, in its origin story, takes us back to Israel all those years ago. Every generation was waiting for Jesus. His birth had been foretold by every family to each young set of ears. Jesus was coming, and he would be special. His arrival meant freedom; not that ancient hearers understood what kind of freedom He would bring, but the anticipation was all the same.
I have always felt impossibly tender about Jesus’ birth story. I just can’t take it. The young unwed mother, the simple family, the baby born in a stable, the announcement only to shepherds, the outrageous ordinary placement of a king. This is how He came. What could ever be more precious than this? Like my friend Amy told me years ago: “I can’t believe that is how he did it.”
I’ll be honest, if Jesus was born in the palace and his freedom enacted through positional power, that wouldn’t qualify as good news to me at all. The closer most leaders get to power, the further from the margins they become. Power protects power, power begets power, and power reinforces power. It is hierarchical in nature, vulnerable to corruption, self-protective at best and others-destructive at worst. Governmental power has been the source of suffering and misery for millennia. It is predictable and disappointing, and the greatest news about Jesus’ birth is that it happened in a barn.
My all-time favorite sermon on Jesus’ birth story was by Charles Spurgeon* in 1862:
“By being in a manger he was declared to be the king of the poor…it is not a Caesar that is born today; he will never trample down our fields with his armies, or slaughter our flocks for his courtiers, he will be the poor man’s friend, the people’s monarch…In thus being laid in a manger, he did, as it were, give an invitation to the most humble to come to him. We might tremble to approach a throne, but we cannot fear to approach a manger.
Never could there be a being more approachable than Christ. No rough guards pushed poor petitioners away; no array of officious friends were allowed to keep off the importunate widow or the man who clamored that his son might be made whole. The hem of his garment was always trailing where sick folk could reach it, and he himself had a hand always ready to touch the disease, an ear to catch the faintest accents of misery, a soul going forth everywhere in rays of mercy.”
A soul going forth everywhere in rays of mercy.
This was who Jesus was and this is how He came, and this is why we look forward to the beginning of the story every year. Advent turns our eyes to the most subversive plot twist ever conceived. It is never not magnificent. It never gets old. It never leaves out the humble or excludes the poor. It never shifts into something shinier or fancier, no matter how many watching eyes are on it during this time of year. This story has no nefarious agenda once it reaches a popularity quota. It remains stubbornly anti-establishment and unwaveringly pro-justice. Jesus was, as foretold, good news for the poor, which as it turns out, is all of us.
The way He came is everything. There was no other way for the story to begin. Everything about Jesus was authentic and true. He didn’t bookend his life with auspicious privileges; he was born in a manger and died on a cross. Jesus was altogether good, exactly who he claimed to be, proved to be, and is to this day.
Advent remembers the beginning and helps us thrill yet again that this is how He did it. We gently close our eyes to the chaos and frenzy this month has become, and we let our minds wander back to that dark night in Bethlehem, the laboring young mother, the straw under her back, the baby’s arrival to us; Jesus, Lord at thy birth. We approach the manger because all are welcome there.
With adoration, we welcome hope as it enters the story. He came for us.
Through the month of December 2023, I’ll be gathering my community to walk through this Advent season. Stay tuned for those live sessions on Facebook and Instagram.
SESSION 1: Monday, December 4 @ 8:30 p.m. CT
SESSION 2: Sunday, December 10 @ 8:30 p.m. CT
SESSION 3: Sunday, December 17
SESSION 4: Thursday, December 21
Enneagramateurs, our thoughts to squash Thursday are as follows.
1’s: I will not reload the dishwasher correctly. There is more than one right way to do things. These jackwagons are clearly doing it WRONG but I will walk away from this tragedy. God, how are we related.
2’s: I will not clear every plate, store the leftovers, clean the kitchen, & put everyone’s babies down for naps by myself. I will just sit here while NO ONE DOES IT, but it’s fine. They will still love me. I have value. I’ll just clear half the plates.
3’s: This meal is not efficient & these people are talking too long about nonsense, & I haven’t gotten one decent pic for IG. “What’s that about your ex-coworker, Aunt Mary? FASCINATING. TELL ME MORE.” My task list has gone to crap & we’ll all just die at this table.
4’s: I will not compare this Thanksgiving to my childhood & conclude that no one here loves or sees me. It isn’t their fault they have no souls. They live in the shallows & can’t comprehend my rich interior life. I will go into my mind palace & sing the new Adele album.
5’s: I strongly dislike everything happening. Why are they all talking. Why are they touching me. No I will not say what I am thankful for. Why are people like this. I will Irish goodbye & go home & watch Yellowstone in bed.
6’s: Which of these jokers will ruin the day? Who will bring up Nancy Pelosi? How long until Brad criticizes the pies again & makes Grandma cry? We won’t have enough food. Thanksgiving is chaos. I hate it here.
7’s: No one is having a better Thanksgiving than us! Omg, EVERYONE is having a better Thanksgiving than us. We are the best & this is the most fun day, except for everyone else having a more fun day. EVERYONE PLAY THE TURKEY BINGO GAME AND STOP BITCHING. Fun!
8’s: I will not bring up immigration. I will not bring up Jared Kushner. “WTF, Michael? Does your shirt say ‘Praise the Lord & pass the ammunition’? Alright, hands up: who here got vaccinated?”
9’s: I will manage these people with soothing tones & a seating chart. I will separate them by voting bloc and/or wokeness. I will create the 1st tension-free Thanksgiving ever.
I am thinking about all of you who are coming up on big days.
The holidays and all of the gatherings, events, and feelings they bring can be a lot.
Maybe your family or your relationships don’t look like you hoped or dreamed.
Maybe something’s hard. Something’s strained. Something never was. Something’s not what you hoped for or wished for. And thus the holidays come with a big shopping cart full of anxiety and even dread.
How do we manage these very real feelings of disappointment and even loss?
I have a few ideas… none of these are magic, all they can do is sort of grab us by our little hands and walk us through the hard parts.
1. Write down what you feel like is missing.
I learned to do this in therapy and thus did this a lot. Whatever it is that you feel like you’re missing or that you never had, write it down.
Maybe it goes something like this:
“These are words that I would have loved to hear.”
“This is what I wish I had.”
“This is what I wish was different.”
“I wish this relationship was like this.
“I wish I didn’t have to walk on eggshells in this.”
Something about putting pen to paper takes away some of the power of these thoughts, so they are not swimming around in our minds anymore.
2. Write down what you do have.
If you can access this idea, consider what you DO have. While this particular day or this experience isn’t what you may have wanted, write down what you do have.
Think about what is worthy of noticing… it can be the tiniest positive thing. Whatever it is, say what you’re grateful for.
“I’m thankful for this.”
“I’m glad for this.”
“I can experience joy inside this.”
“I have this person.”
“It is worth noticing this.”
3. Manage your expectations
Take people at their word of who they are and how they have been. Therefore, it can be helpful to expect what you’re probably going to have and what you’ve already experienced.
Don’t anticipate that something will magically be different this year. Those expectations are a source of a lot of our pain.
4. Employ boundaries.
When needed, employ boundaries. Maybe you need to make a decision that you’re not going somewhere — or that something is going to be different this year. Or maybe you just go for two hours. You get to decide how much to let in and how much to leave out.
This is healthy. And you can do it lovingly with a lot of respect and kindness. It doesn’t have to be contentious. It can just be clear.
I know personally what it is like when relationships are challenging around this time of year — or when relationships may have changed.
Sending you love and wishing for this season to be as lovely as possible for you.
This was on every, and I mean every, holiday table throughout my entire childhood.
As the four of us grew up and flew the coop, we all called home for this recipe to serve to our new mothers-in-law or boyfriends or roommates.
Wait. Not true. The baby never called home for Grandma’s carrots because he is spoiled and someone always makes these for him.
When you are the youngest boy with three older sisters, you merely have to *think* of something you want and one of us will procure it. (Once, before we all moved to Austin, one sister called me to talk smack about the other sister after Thanksgiving: “I hate when we are all together. Cortney just HOGS Drew the entire time!” LOL. We need counseling.)
Note: Let’s talk about the carrots first. I love my grandma King. I do. God rest her blessed memory. God love her costume jewelry, her acrylic nails, her floor-length mink, and her basement full of Chico’s tunics. But Grandma used canned carrots in her recipe, and it was a bridge too far when we re-created this as adults. Vegetables I will allow out of a can: Le Sueur peas, pickled asparagus, corn. That’s it. That’s the list. This feels generous, because we grew up with Veg-All, may God have mercy on our souls.
PROCESS
Preheat your oven to 350°F and butter a 9 x 13-inch casserole dish
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Peel and slice your carrots on an angle, not too thick. Oh! You are forbidden to use baby carrots. Those are an affront to nature. What even the heck with fake baby carrots.
Drop your sliced Carrots From The Earth™ into that boiling water and cook until firmish-tender, 12 to 15 minutes, then drain.
Meanwhile, put the Velveeta, half-and-half, and the 6 tablespoons butter into a microwave-safe bowl and zap it for a minute at a time, stirring after each zap, until you have a creamy, smooth cheese concoction, 3 to 4 minutes total. We tried to get fancy with this one year and used real cheese, and it was an abomination. You will use the Velveeta and you will like it.
In your buttered casserole dish, spread a layer of carrots, then follow with a sprinkling of salt and black pepper and cayenne, a layer of the stuffing (use 1 cup here), a layer of the cheese sauce, the rest of the carrots plus S&P and cayenne, then pour the rest of the cheese mix all over the whole thing. Bake, uncovered, for 25 minutes.
Take it out and switch the oven to broiler. Top the casserole with the remaining 1 cup stuffing mix, drizzle with the 4 tablespoons melted butter, and put it under the broiler on the middle rack for 3 to 5 minutes, until the stuffing is browned and crunchy.
Whatever, haters! Don’t you dare knock Grandma King’s cheese carrots until you’ve tried them.
Sure, I considered elevating this recipe with garlic or fresh herbs or some sophisticated substitution, but guess what? I prefer the 1980s green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions over the food blogger versions, too.
Get out of here with “pickled shallots” on top. I can’t wait for y’all to make these and love them. I cannot quit laughing. I’ll make these until I die.
For more recipes, grab a copy of Feed These People and thank me later.
In 1998, when I was twenty-four, we moved to Texas and my eating world was turned upside down.
Exhibit A: La Paletera was on every solitary corner, and its specialty was a giant cup of diced fruit doused with chile-lime Tajín seasoning. Chili powder! On fruit!
Exhibit B: Barbacoa tacos. I ate my first one exactly as the ancestors intended, with pit-roasted shredded beef cheeks, chopped onion, and cilantro, and reader, I saw stars.
Exhibit C: Tamales. I’d never even heard of them. Ate some at a Christmas party, handmade by the aunts and grandmas the entire previous day, and rededicated my life to Jesus on the spot.
Exhibit D: Migas. I remember where I was sitting the first time I ate this perfect Mexican breakfast. I had no idea you could put all that in your eggs. Happily, in Texas we’ll add onions and peppers and fried tortillas to our eggs if we damn well want to. We’ll put it on our menus and feed it to our babies and act like that’s the proper way to eat eggs, WHICH IT IS.
If I had to pick, I’d say this is my favorite breakfast of all time.
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack or pepper Jack cheese (8 ounces) (no one will be mad if you add more cheese)
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Sliced avocado, for serving
Tortillas, for wrapping the migas
Process
You’re going to fry those tortilla strips first, but don’t panic. It takes 5 minutes. In a skillet, heat the oil and butter over medium-high. Add the tortilla strips and cook, stirring, until they’re crispy and brown all over, around 5 minutes.
Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a paper towel–lined plate to drain.
Add the onion, bell pepper, and jalapeños to the skillet and cook, stirring frequently, until they’re softened, about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, and salt and pepper (or that Texas Tacos Spice) until fluffy and light.
Turn the heat under the skillet down to medium-low, add the tomatoes and garlic, and cook for 1 more minute. (I don’t like the tomatoes to get mushy, so just warm them through here.)
Add the butter to the skillet, then pour in the eggs and gently push them around the pan with a spatula. You want these eggs barely cooked through, still a little glossy, and definitely soft. NO BROWN. Brown eggs make me cry all the tears in Austin.
Add the fried tortilla strips, cheese, and cilantro and stir to combine, then take it off the heat. I am just saying that if you tuck a dollop of refried beans and a scoop of migas inside a warm tortilla and top it with sliced avocado and salsa, you’re never going to eat anything else for the rest of your living days.
It’s like this: The fall season calls for Beef Bourguignon. It just does.
This is the easiest one-pot meal you’ve ever seen in your life. Don’t be fooled by the fancy name.
I use Ina Garten’s recipe as a base — and it is divine. You cannot possibly mess it up and everyone loves it — your pickiest eater will gobble this down like a piggy.
Do the steps like she says. The meat searing, the seasoning of every layer.
What I change:
I omit the Cognac because WHO HAS COGNAC??
I also cook the whole thing at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for closer to two hours. I think the meat needs that heat and time to break down more.
Like Ina suggests, definitely toast thick slices of sourdough in the oven, rub each piece with cut raw garlic, and ladle the whole delightful stew on top. BUT, you could also serve over mashed potatoes or egg noodles or just nothing because it’s so delectable.
(LOOK AT ME CHALLENGING THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA. Maybe I should drive to the Hamptons and we can have a cook off. Jeffrey can judge. We’ll feed it to the neighbors, Hans and Remington the III.)
Also, yes, that is a full bottle of wine it calls for, and if you lessen that quantity, may God have mercy on your soul.
Your house will smell like heaven and if you make enough, you can eat it tomorrow when it is twice as good. Plus you just made French food so now you are very special and worthy of praise. Collect your accolades at the city gates.
Here is a recipe card (or just use Ina Garten’s and make the above modifications, if you so desire):
My Grandpa King was a founding deacon of Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichita, Kansas. My dad grew up there and my parents got married in that sanctuary. I was an adorable Type-A baby in the church nursery no doubt bossing the other Baptist infants.
After moving all over the south, we returned to IBC in 1987 so my dad could build and run the Christian Life Center just as I was starting 8th grade. He would stay on staff for around twenty years.
Thus, my entire adolescence was located under that steeple at 1415 South Topeka Street.
When your dad is a pastor (albeit a very rogue pastor who specialized in basketball tournaments but here we are), your church is as familiar to you as the home you were raised in. You know every nook and cranny because you are there allllllll the tiiiiiiime. And because it was the 80s, children were not required to be supervised. Were you indoors? Somewhere on God’s property? Then you were fine. Your dad would be done in three (four and a half) hours. Figure out your life.
After reading every Nancy Drew book in the church library and exhausting my Sandi Patty solos in the sanctuary, I started exploring. Which is when I experienced the good fortune of Miss Hazel Jewell.
Miss Hazel was the church bookkeeper. She started working at Immanuel when [**calls Dad**] she was 18 years old and retired at 78 on her 60th anniversary. She never married; the church was her family. Miss Hazel was rotund both in body and soul; to me, she could have been 52 or 89. I couldn’t tell.
She had a small, cluttered office in the middle of the church, right near the secret passageway to the sanctuary if you knew your way around. Her system was highly organized to her but chaos to onlookers. Books helter skelter everywhere. Torn pieces of paper sticking out of their spines marking important dates or numbers. A small black and white TV in the corner so she could watch her favorite, Gaither and Friends. Bags of candy on every shelf lest she ever run out for the pastor’s kids/deacons/everyone who frequented her office.
Miss Hazel was a young staffer when my dad was coming up, best friends with Tim Siler who, fortunately or unfortunately, was Pastor Forrest’s son. Dad and Tim were absolute ne’er-do-wells. One time in middle school, they crawled on top of the roof and cherry bombed the church ladies in the courtyard. One of the deacons saw their ladder, took it down, and left them stranded on the roof until Pastor Forrest and Grandpa could come fetch their rascals. The boys were grounded for two months until Miss Hazel intervened and begged for their mercy. She miraculously got their sentence lifted. She could hold a grudge against the pious folk for two decades, but she adored the scoundrels.
Ditto one time in high school when Dad and Tim were tasked with driving a group of younger kids to some church field trip, got bored waiting for whatever soul-enriching experience they were having, and just left them all there. Drove off to go race their cars instead. When the adults lost their minds and punishment was swift, Miss Hazel stepped in on their behalf and called it a “misunderstanding of transportation” and won them a reduced sentence.
Fast forward a whole generation, and Larry’s daughter found her way into Miss Hazel’s messy office.
Three memories come immediately to mind:
Miss Hazel would absolutely crush your rib cage with her hugs. She was probably the reason church people invented the side hug. There was no restraint. If you were not a “touchy person,” you were plumb out of luck. You were in Miss Hazel’s kingdom. She would hug the stuffing out of you.
In no universe would you EVER come up empty for candy. There was candy everywhere. Hard candy, gummy candies, lollipops, orange peanuts, lemon drops, Atomic fireballs, peppermints, Good and Plenty, Twizzlers, everything. For children whose parents were into oat bran, it was nirvana.
No matter what time, what day, whatever else was going on, Miss Hazel would stop what she was doing and talk to me. I mean, talk to me. She’d ask a million unrelenting questions. She never forgot a detail. If I was into Josh Asper the last time we chatted, her first question the next time was: “Has that Josh wizened up and called you?”
I’ve been thinking lately about the idea of generosity; ‘tis the season after all. Generosity is often tied to money, and to be sure, financial generosity is no joke. I call as my witness our pastor Adam and his wife Patty who left $100 of groceries on our doorstep when we were young marrieds without a nickel to our name. I run an entire organization that funds nonprofit work around the world. Money matters and absolutely counts in the generosity calculus.
But today I’m thinking about a generosity of spirit, like Miss Hazel had. This benevolent gift of time and attention, affection and care. It costs both nothing and everything. Talk about a practice of yesteryear. We can barely put our phones down when having a conversation with someone we love, much less some random pastor’s kid eating your Jolly Ranchers and bemoaning her invisibility to Josh Asper. What an offering. What generosity.
This brand of lavish kindness is available to each of us…to give. I’m compelled by Miss Hazel’s legacy to put down the phone, quietly close the laptop, make eye contact, ask for more:
How did that make you feel?
What happened after that?
How do you want to respond?
What are you hoping for?
Also:
That was really brave of you.
I love how you handled that.
That wasn’t at all your fault.
You did the right thing.
Also:
What are you dreaming up?
What do you hope will happen?
Where would you love to go?
How would you like to show up?
Also:
What would you have done differently?
How do you wish that would have gone?
What would you have liked her to say?
What would you say today?
Also:
I really love how hard you tried.
This isn’t worth quitting over.
You are going to nail this next time.
You are asking great questions.
Generosity of spirit looks like time, attention, thoughtfulness, follow-up. In some ways, it far exceeds money or stuff. It sounds like loyalty and feels like love. It is the type of affection that has a 49-year-old woman talking about it 36 years later. Maya Angelou famously said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
About twenty years ago, Wichita-based radio station KLEO ran a contest for “people who have been at the same job the longest.” My dad called in and nominated Miss Hazel in her 50th year at IBC. She won by a landslide.
Miss Hazel is in heaven giving Bit-O-Honey’s to Jesus and bruising his ribcage now, but I look forward to joining her one day so we can pick right back up on my love life. I have TONS to catch her up on.
What a legend. What a mentor without meaning to be. I’d love to be just like her. May “generosity” mark our legacy. I hope one of my kids names their baby Hazel Jewell and she becomes worthy of her namesake.
Take a peek around
If you’re not sure where to begin, I got you, friend. I’m always bringing you something new to enjoy.
Every week, I share little love notes of encouragement along with exclusive content, exciting things, what I’m loving, and more — all straight to your inbox. Want in on this?
