The one thing you need to do to have a really fabulous holiday season

It's that time of the year. There's shopping and decorating and holiday parties. There's family gatherings and festive meals. There's spiritual rituals and secular traditions. And it's all fabulous...on paper.

The upcoming holiday season looks wonderful on glossy magazine covers and in thousands of new pins. All the recipes look yummy and gift-buying guides are full of inspiration.

All we have to do is make time for the holiday hoopla. And pay for it.

Got your holiday stress on yet?

I've had some pretty miserable holiday seasons. And I've learned one very important thing from them. It's the thing that has kept me from driving head-on into a house trimmed with perfectly straight icicle lights, right through Santa and his eight light-up reindeer.

Before you deck the halls, trim the tree, wrap the gifts or stuff the tofu turkey, take this little piece of advice.

Get on your mat.

Unroll your yoga mat every day and practice, even if that means twenty minutes in Viparita Karani (Leg Up the Wall Pose) while tears run down your face because you are going to have to choose between the toy your kid really wants and paying the rent. (Been there, done that.)

Take ten, twenty or thirty minutes a day for yourself to recharge. Not only will you feel less like strangling an elf, but in a moment of clarity you might just figure out how to get those antlers to stay on your dog's head.

The truth is, in this time of giving, the greatest gifts you can offer are your presence and your inner light. And you won't find either one unless you crawl out from under that pile of tinsel and cultivate your own serenity. Trust me, when your youngest finally climbs into Santa's lap and smiles instead of running away screaming about the scary red man, you'll want to be here and now. Practice, so you'll be ready for the really fabulous stuff that comes in moments, not in boxes.

And however you celebrate the return of the sun, I wish you a holiday season full of peace, joy and Adho Mukha Svanasanas.

Quieting Down

Image via WikipediaAfter Columbus Day weekend, Schroon Lake gets really quiet. The vacation homes have been closed up for the winter. Some of the snow birds are already migrating to Florida and the rest will soon follow. Other than a few die-hard leaf-peepers and a handful of hikers, the visitors are gone.

Like most of the local business owners who work very hard over the summer, my first reaction to the quiet is a sigh of relief. This is followed by a brief moment of panic about paying the studio's rent in the winter until I remind myself that this is my third winter here and the studio has done just fine during the lean months. Next is the serious stuff - deciding how to spend my time.

Compared to eight short weeks of jamming in everything I possibly can while the sun is out, the eight months of cold ahead should be flush with time, right? And yet I always seem to end up on the brink of summer not having accomplished all the things I was going to do during the winter so I'd be ready for the summer craziness. Other than losing a hour or two (or twenty) to shoveling snow, there should be lots of time for reading all those books, making some art and knitting. There should also be time for planning and preparing so next summer isn't a rushed blur.

Where does all that time go?

I spent my free time in September making lists. I have a pile of them, listing all the things that I need to start doing, or start doing again. My problem is that without a looming deadline, it's too easy to put stuff off. Just as I have a hard time sticking to triathlon or run training without an upcoming race, I can't seem to find motivation for tasks until failure to do them creates a crisis and, let's face it, most things don't.

Is there a part of your year that quiets down? Are you able to use your quiet times to move forward with your goals or dreams? Or do they get away from you?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Winter

Now that the holidays are behind us, I'm settling into my first Adirondack winter. I love how the snow stays crisp and white instead of turning to slush. Sometimes, when the light is right, I feel as if I've stepped into an Ansel Adams photograph.

During the past week, it seems that everyone has slowed down. More people are coming to yoga, and I'm happy to have them. I've shifted the focus of my classes to make them more meditative, taking advantage of our natural inclination to come inside when it's dark and cold.

I've slowed down as well. I'm still working on unpacking, but at a less furious pace. Last week we started hanging pictures, and my daughter's room has been repainted a beautiful turquoise hew. My houseplants have all found homes, the light-lovers enjoying the bay window in the dining room. I've found all my shoes, my sewing box and my yoga books. It's starting to feel like home.

There is quiet time now. There is time for a puzzle with lots of tiny pieces. There is time to knit a hat for a yoga student's first granddaughter. There is time to read and write in my journal. There is time to just be.

Of course, winter isn't all about being inside. There is fun to be had in the snow. The sleds have carried us downhill. We've skated on the frozen lake. The snowmobiles have been freed from their trailer and have taken up residence under our deck when we aren't riding them on the trails. Our newly acquired snowshoes are ready for a test.

Since we are close to Lake Placid, we can also be spectators of a variety of winter sports. This morning we watched some NASCAR drivers pilot bobsleds on the Olympic bobsled run. The event got started late, and we speculated that the southern boys had to be dragged kicking and screaming out into the cold. I suspect it's a tad bit warmer in Daytona.