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Hello {!firstname}:
 You
know how this time of year some of us can go a bit over the top in our effort
(and I do mean EFFORT!) to create the perfect, Father Knows Best, fantasy
holiday? Well, if the economic slowdown doesn't slow you down this year, maybe
my sorry tale of woe will.
Over the years, I'd been adding more and more and more to my "perfect" holiday -
I say holiday because in our house we celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah -
and frankly, I was getting close to cracking. For three or four years I'd been
asking the family (Richard, Jason and Jamie) if we could have a family sit down
around what Christmas might look like so I wouldn't be so fried when it was
over. "But Lin, we LOVE Christmas just the way it is." Well, of course they did.
I did all the work. They just showed up for the fun part.
Then came the BIG ONE: 2002. We'd been in our dream lake house a little over a
year. Oh no, perfect Martha Stewart had nothing on me. The house was decorated
impeccably within an inch of its life. The 8' tree was glorious and took the
better part of a day to adorn what with the gazillion pesky lights that worked
"perfectly" before they were on the tree, then didn't once they were. Perfect
brass stocking holders in the form of picture frames stood sturdily on the
mantle, each with a picture of one of us as a child. The perfect fresh wreaths
hung gloriously on the front door, side door, and the two garage doors. Perfect
fresh bunting twisted divinely up the stairwell. Perfect poinsettias (red, of
course!) and boxwood adorned every surface. The house smelled like heaven.
Tired yet? There's more. I stayed up night after night to write personal
Christmas card messages to just about everyone I'd ever said hello to. I planned
the (once again) perfect annual Jewish Christmas Party. Only what had started
out years before to be an intimate gathering of family and close friends on
Christmas Eve ended with 54 adults and 11 children in our home - seven of the
children I had never laid eyes on before. And, while Chanu-Claus (aka Richard)
had always delivered wonderful presents to our Jewish nieces and nephew who
attended, I decided that wasn't enough, and I created Holiday stockings filled
with chocolate Santas and dreidels, and tiny fun toys.
Ready for a nap? Not yet. There was the tiny problem of those seven unknown
children and what to give them. So, I did copious research and found myself
spending hours at FAO Schwarz in NYC shopping for these little unknowns instead
of treating myself to high tea across the street at the Plaza Hotel. I found the
gifts, wrapped the gifts, created fabulous additional stockings for them, in
addition to shopping, wrapping, and additional shopping for everyone in our
family.
Yes, there's more. My friend Bonnie and her boyfriend du jour (and possibly her
pre-teenage daughter) were coming for the party and staying with us. So, I
frantically ordered three additional picture frame stocking holders, got
pictures of each of them as kids, bought presents for them, including stocking
stuffers, wrapped everything and was ready for the big night. Except for the
planning, purchasing, cooking, serving, etc. for the party.
Of course the perfect party was a perfect success, and after everything was
cleaned up and everyone had gone off to bed, I stayed up and stuffed six out of
seven of those perfect stockings hanging on six out of seven of those perfect
stocking holders with all the perfect stuffers I had found, and finally
collapsed into bed only to be awakened a few short hours later by three eager
pre-teens ready to rock and roll into Christmas.
Here's the piece de resistance: Those six perfect stockings were stuffed to
overflowing with wonderful, thoughtful treats, and my stocking, beautiful though
it was hanging on that perfect stocking holder, was perfectly empty. I was
devastated. Chanu-Claus had blown it, and he knew it. And, while at the time, I
was deeply hurt, I secretly thank him every December for giving me the slap up
the side of the head I needed to stop my Christmas craziness.
Christmas 2003 was one of my best holidays ever. I sent not one card, decorated
not one inch, planned, cooked, cleaned up not one small meal, shopped for not
one present. Richard and I spent Christmas Eve with dear friends dining at a
lovely inn in the country. Christmas day we spent together, enjoying each other
and our time together.
Three years ago, I re-introduced a bit of the traditional holidays back into my
life. I do a little decorating, sometimes with a tree (if our granddaughter
Serenity is visiting), sometimes not. I call the people who mean the most to me
over the holidays instead of sending cards, and I now enjoy December as a time
to slow down, reflect on the past year, and connect with my deepest values.
And this year, I'm adding a new tradition. Each year, Serenity and I will choose
a gift from Heifer International (see Lin Recommends below) to go to a family
less fortunate than ours. It doesn’t get any better than that!
So, as you move into this holiday season, remember what's important, and do what
you need to do to take care of yourself..
To your (and the season's) endless possibilities!
Lin Schreiber, Retirement Revolutionary
 
Last week, I had the great good
fortune to be interviewed once again by Janis Pryor for the
Commonwealth
Journal on WUMB 91.9-FM in Boston. Janis is a real pro, and she does her
homework.
The topic for our interview was "Women Over 50 Making Money in a Down Economy".
Great topic, Janis wasn’t satisfied, though, just to hear the success stories of
my clients. She wanted to know what I had to say to women who have little or no
financial resources at this point. Wow! What a great conversation we had.
You can listen in on Sunday, January 4th at 7:00 PM. Enjoy!
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All the details of the Costa Rica Retreat have
been finalized (yes, that's a picture of a room in one of the resorts!), and boy
am I excited.
Lin Schreiber is a Retirement Revolutionary who loves helping self-reliant women reinvent themselves in the next stage of life, formerly known as "retirement." Like Lin, her clients have a positive vision for the future, and the idea of riding off into the sunset for the next 30-40 years isn't in the picture.
"I
have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a
kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts
freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow
passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other
journeys." ~Charles Dickens
