Where is the magic this season?
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Where is the magic this season?
Where can it be found?
You do all the things.
You wrap the gifts.
Decorate the tree.
Send the cards.
Attend the parties.
Make the cookies.
But you come up short. Magic still feels hard to find. We want it to show up on our doorstep. To have that Hallmark Moment of Christmas that tells us the magic is real. Something extraordinary. Yet, here we are in the hustle and bustle of the season. Rushing towards the 25th with hearts feeling vacant or, at best, exhausted.
You reflect on this year, another one passed, and maybe feel accomplished and maybe feel like you left some of yourself on the table.
Maybe time feels like it's moving so quickly, perhaps it feels too slow.
Maybe life handled you in a way you never expected this year.
Maybe it was the best year yet.
Maybe you are thankful for a new year, a new decade before you.
Maybe it feels daunting.
Maybe your family is gathering. Perhaps life circumstances keep you apart.
Let's look for magic in the unlikely places. We look for it in the bright lights and the music. We search for it in the shiny gifts and the perfect social posts. We look for it in the parties we attend and the sparkly outfits we wear. We hope for it in flawless family gatherings. We look for it in an "ideal" season, whatever that looks like to you.
But the magic is found in the quiet moments, in the hugs, the tears, the missing, the hoping.
It's found in the giving and receiving of love.
It's found in the memories that simultaneously warm and break our hearts.
It's found in looking for the invisible that sits beside the visible.
It's found in looking ahead to a new year, full of promise, even when the future feels daunting.
Let us look for magic in unlikely places this week. Let's see this season differently. Let us show up as we are and look for magic hiding in doubtful spaces. Let us be bearers of light even if we feel sad or lonely or passed over. Let us choose to show up with the little we have to a world desperate for light.
Let us find the magic in choosing love over exhaustion.
In choosing patience over frustration.
Let us decide that what we have to give is enough. Even if it feels like not enough.
Let's find the magic in a walk outside. In coffee with a friend. In a quiet moment before the house wakes up for the day. Let us find it in memories we cherish. People we love. Gratitude for what was and what is. And yes, even in our sadness. Because that means we love deeply. Let us look at those things that feel heavy in a new way. Can we find magic even there?
This season brings out so many conflicting emotions for me. As I shop for my kids, I can't help but wonder what I would be buying for a fourteen-year-old Ethan. I wonder what I would be buying for a healthy, able-bodied five-year-old Bodey. It is easy for me to slump into a focus on what is not. So much so that I also neglect to see all that is. And so this season often asks us to shift our thinking.
To see the light in our darkness. To find wholeness in our broken spaces. To choose to sit in the wonder of the unknown instead of the comfort of certainty. I miss Ethan because I love him, so I focus on all the light he has brought to my life. Not shoving aside my sadness, but letting it sit beside my gratitude. He literally shifted the way I see everything in life. And I never want to go back. I can focus on the fact that shopping for a five-year-old with a body and mind that has so many challenges is painful. Or I can focus on the fact that Bodey doesn't really want anything but my love and my time. And so I can give him some more of that.
We find magic when we shift our perceptions. When we decide to change our minds about what is in front of us. Yes, acknowledge what we wish was different. Shoving them under the rug isn't healthy. But then hold the tension. And let go of what "should be." Surrender to what is. And find some magic there.
I promise the magic lives in the spaces you least expect.
Look for it this week.
