LOVE LOVE LOVE LM’s Christmas memories! And it’s funny that in all this time I haven’t heard these stories before! My journey with Christmas in paradise started out a little differently – so I spent my Christmases in snowy, cold, northern Wisconsin where my only reference to palm trees was through songs like Mele Kalikimaka, White Christmas, and Christmas Island. They felt dreamy and other worldly – warm and exciting and yet the thought never occurred to me to want to trade white snow for white sand; I couldn’t get my head around it.

One year our company held its December sales conference in Palm Springs. Living in Chicago and taking the El to work (read bone chillingly cold platforms with gale force winds ripping through every warm layer you put on), it was so lovely to get away to this desert paradise for a few days. Yet as lovely as it was (and it was, seafood buffet at 5 star hotel anyone?) I couldn’t figure out how anyone could enjoy Christmas in shorts.

Jump ahead 23 years and a few moves later and I found myself moving our family from our idyllic western mountain shire to the coast. Total time of this move including selling our house, buying a new house, packing our house and moving was 4 months – more on that craziness another time.

Oh yes, and that just happened to be the year I turned 50. So the first Christmas in the palms was basically a blur that I was just thankful to get through without a complete meltdown. The next Christmas was the first time our oldest wouldn’t be home with us for it – rough – and it rained for almost 3 months straight. So this year I felt like I had paid my dues and would enjoy it a bit more. And I did. Until I didn’t. I have family 2000 miles away and dear friends 1000 miles away, all of them in winter wonderlands and the blues started creeping back in no matter how hard I tried to just go with it.

So I was so thrilled to hear LM’s memories – once I really saw HOW people made beautiful Christmas memories in paradise it made sense and I knew where I had misstepped. I was trying to convince myself that Christmas here could be just the same as Christmas back “home”; people grew up here and their only memories of this time of year involve beaches and palm trees and 75 degrees.

While that’s true – I was trying to hold on so tightly to how it looked in my head, I didn’t notice all the new fun that was to be had. We spent Thanksgiving playing frisbee for hours and walking miles along an almost deserted beach. We saw the Parade Of Lights on the ocean where all kinds of decked out boats celebrated and fireworks lit the sky. My daughter and I wore cute shoes and no socks instead of parkas and winter boots for our annual trip to the Nutcracker. We made an entire tropical Christmas playlist and listened to it in the sun on our deck when we got a surprise 80 degree day.

In other words I stopped resisting change (impermanence), let go of my need to control the situation as well as of my fear that spending Christmas in a new way would somehow lessen or negate the memories of childhood. Isn’t it funny how most often the first right thing we need to do when we’re challenged is let go of any expectation of outcome and control. Instead, when we accept impermanence we can change our worry into curiosity and find that life has so much wonder and beauty to offer us if we just get out of our own way.

And some things stay the same; it’s still cold when I go to unplug the deck lights, only now I smell the crisp sea air instead of the crisp mountain air. And I’m so grateful to have learned a whole new way of living. It’s such a great adventure.

Now it’s your turn – we’re curious where you’d spend Christmas if you could spend it anywhere in the world, and why. Please let us know in the comments and become part of the fun!