We are full bore into what our family jokingly calls “The Eating Season”.  Starts with candy at Halloween and ends with candy at Easter. Some call it the holiday season……..but I really love the idea of calling it “The Eating Season”.

What does it have to do with Gentleness?  Year after year we think of who we want around our table during “The Eating Season” because we believe that family, whatever it looks like, needs to be together every now and then.   I was lamenting one Easter about the folks that hadn’t made it for dinner that year.  Our oldest son looked at me and said, “Since when did 8 people at the table mean a small turnout?”  What a marvelous wake up call that was for me!!  I realized how important it is to be Gentle with myself through this season, enjoying all the Goodness that abounds.  I painted this sign for myself  as I was getting ready to host a holiday feast midway through the next “Eating Season”.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t feeling particularly any of these three things.  I was full on into worrying and fretting about who was coming, and how the food was going to taste, and who might say something unkind – you get the idea.  Taking the time to paint this sign on a piece of the original siding from our old house transformed that dinner for me.  For the record, this sign didn’t make my family holiday dinners into a Norman Rockwell painting, but I do have a sweet family who keeps gathering to share a meal.  I have kept this sign up there over the door ever since so I can read it every day.  Every.  Day.

We all know what Gentleness looks like.  It shows up in the face, voice and demeanor of a person when a newborn baby is placed in their arms.  We can’t stop our voice from changing to a softer, more gentle sound.  Our face softens – even the face of a wizened old lady loses a few sad wrinkles and gains some softer, smile wrinkles when gazing on the face of a baby.  Perhaps our body is more tense, but that is because we know we need to handle this baby gently and we might be out of practice.

We have all heard the Christmas story.  I was just yesterday ruminating on a comment I heard a few years ago that went something like this: “Isn’t it amazing that Jesus came to us as a humble newborn instead of a king with robes and a crown?”  I realized that he wanted us to be Gentle, didn’t he?

Here is a song I sing along to every Christmas.  I imagine if you asked my kids what Christmas tape (yep, tape) I played every year as they were growing up, it would be Peter, Paul and Mary’s Christmas concert.  This particular song is so catchy and captivating.  I love it that I can sing along and remember the words.  Think about how incredible the “itty bitty baby” thing is and enjoy the Gentleness all around you.  Summon up and embrace the Gentleness in yourself.  It is truly marvelous.

Merry Christmas.  Enjoy the Gentlest season of the year.  Make a hot cuppa, put on some wool socks, curl up, and listen for the sounds of Gentleness all around this winter.