Tiny Holidays 2024

For most of the ten years since I got divorced, the holiday season has felt rough, or at least something of a struggle. My aunt and I have had a shared countdown—starting in November, it was “get through it and check it off.”

Last Thanksgiving, my Dad had just come home from two weeks in the hospital and two weeks in a nursing facility with a feeding tube and a walker. He was so thin and could only eat soft or blended food. It was a hard time and we knew it would be his last holiday season, but he was still himself—loving, determined, gracious. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my sister’s beautiful, warm home and she and her family created the most magical dinner. My Dad ate mushroom soup, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, drank a Bud Zero, and watched football with his grandsons. It was tender and poignant; we were bracing ourselves for what was coming.

This year, everything is different. I’ve been home in Champaign Urbana for eight months and every day, something else reminds me of how much I love it here. My divorce is long behind me, and the sweet and joyful connections I have with each of my kids continue to heal my heart. This year, I am an interfaith seminary student at One Spirit Learning Alliance. This year, when it comes to the holidays, I am all in.

I’m leaning in to everything the holidays offer: the concerts, the shared meals, the candles that smell like fir trees, the biting cold, the cheesy movies, and the way the light feels both stark and inviting. I’m calling it “Tiny Holidays” because my life is pretty small scale these days—an 8-5 work routine, weekends studying, a modest budget, and a tiny apartment. It’s all very mundane and calming and I love it. I’m so happy to be here, to have made it through a lot of grim years to this hopeful, open-hearted space. And I’m inviting you to join in if you’d like to, to experience these next weeks together, whatever your circumstances are. A tiny, loving, safe, quietly joyful place to celebrate the season.

Today at church, the choir sang, “Every Day is a Day of Thanksgiving,” by Leonard Burke (have a listen to this version by Dr. Charles G. Hayes and The Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer Choir). The refrain is: “God keeps blessing me, blessing me; God opens the door that I might see, God’s blessing me. Everyday God’s blessing me. Everyday is a day of Thanksgiving.” It’s such a good song; how great would it be to feel even a tiny bit of that every day?

So much love,

Leslie