When our kids were young, the Christmas wish lists started on Thanksgiving with the ads that came out in the newspaper. I used to get up early and go to town for Black Friday shopping, trying to get deals on family presents. I love giving gifts, and it was fun to look for what I knew family members would enjoy, while also getting a good deal.
When Black Friday shifted to Thanksgiving, I quit racing for a good deal unless it could be found online. I didn’t want to trade family time for shopping. Since we lived an hour from major stores, online shopping worked best anyway to fulfill those wish lists.
This year, my cowboy and I were talking about our Christmas wish lists. The kids are grown, but they still give us ideas for gifts, which I appreciate. As for my cowboy and me, we’re deciding this year we don’t want “stuff,” we want an experience.
We’ve never been the type who wanted fancy gadgets for Christmas. We like practical things like socks, tack and layers of warm clothing. Big items, like saddles, usually come after budgeting for them, not necessarily for holiday gifts. Sure, we appreciate fineries and unique things, such as the digital thermometer for the grill the kids gifted one year. However, we hope that what we do around Christmas isn’t just about gifts, it’s about people. The gifts are an expression for the people we love and care about.
Plus, the older we get, the less we want. It’s a paradox that comes with age – similar to the one that states, “The older I get, the less I know.” As we age, the more we realize even if we keep learning, there’s always more to learn.
Gifts are like that. The older we get, the more we realize what we really want is what we already have: family, friends, hope and love. I know. It sounds as cheesy as a Hallmark movie. But what we want this year for Christmas is to create experiences that our family remembers as special. Hopefully, we will have many more years with them, but as we age, we want to make sure we create experiences.
We haven’t decided what we are going to do, but we are leaning toward a snow coach tour through Yellowstone Park. The park is different, serene, in the winter. Whatever we decide to do, the intention will be to build memories. Having positive memories with people is a sign of success for us.
Success does tend to be on the mind at the end of the year. What worked? What didn’t? What do we hope to keep heading into the New Year? What do we want to let go of?
Here, too, the definition of success has shifted over time.
Earlier on in our marriage, Christmas was the culmination of the year – do it big for a grand finale! There isn’t anything wrong with that per se, but I let it become a pressure to stress out about. Did I do it “right” so that the kids had a good year? Is it good enough for everyone? That stole a lot of joy! I’ll never quit trying to give gifts that people love, but when the pressure to perform outweighs the intent behind it, it stresses me out.
A good year isn’t measured by how good the gifts were at Christmas. To us, good years are measured by fruitfulness in relationships, health in people and livestock, and growing in who God made us to be and how we relate to Him. We’d also like to grow in our careers: building wealth as we’re able, learning and sharing tools with others about ranching and building community.
The reality is that at the end of the year, only you (and I) can define if it was a successful year. Ultimately that is answered by one question: What does success mean to you?
Whatever is important to you is fine. There isn’t a wrong answer:
- Is it about increasing streams of income?
- Growing the ranch? Getting bigger? Maintaining? Or reducing size for manageability?
- Improving herd health? Or stockmanship?
- Getting kids through college?
Areas of focus will change throughout our lives, and focal points will shift. That’s normal and to be expected. Granted, everyone would like the financial aspects to grow. We’ve worked on that for years to find a system that works for us. That doesn’t mean it is the only factor to define a year’s success.
As the year ends, let’s build our wish lists, whether it’s activities or items. Let’s delight in Christmas and enjoy our people. Let’s define what success means to us and what we were grateful for this past year. As we do, may we remember the value of things we cannot see, like love and hope.
Blessings on your December, my friends!
