Maximum Gratitude, Minimal Stuff

My family and I are long-time fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's work, especially The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings .  My husband Jon and I had each read and loved those wonderful books more than once before we left college.  When our children were 9 and 12, we embarked on a very ambitious project.  In anticipation of the release of Peter Jackson's film, The Fellowship of the Ring , Jon and I wanted to reread the entire four-volume work, and also give our kids the chance to experience it as Tolkien created it, before their imaginations were influenced by the film interpretation.  So we committed to spend approximately one hour each evening, all through the summer and fall of 2001, reading aloud that massive and beautiful saga.  The kids clamored for more every night, and this became the high point of our family life at that time. However, none of us had ever seen or heard of Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas ,* written and illustrated for his own children from 1...

Have you seen the wonderful 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street ?*  It's one of my all-time favorites, and I try to watch it at least once every year.  Of course, it's perfectly cast (especially Edmund Gwenn and the young Natalie Wood), and full of delightful moments.  (The scene at the beginning about the correct order of the reindeer comes to mind, along with the bubble gum incident, the judge getting buried in letters to Santa, and so many more.) * Thank you for supporting this blog with your purchases.  If you use my links, I may earn a small commission. Not only does Miracle have its laugh-out-loud moments, but there's a love story, along with a mystery and some suspense.  Of course, it's mostly a movie about Santa Claus... or is it? Nobody's perfect. One thing that Miracle on 34th Street is not is syrupy, unlike so many Christmas movies.  In fact, the miracle of Christmas happens despite the fact that almost every character (with the exception of Kri...

If you're reading this blog, there's a pretty good chance your home is stuffed with stuff.  Why else would you be interested in decluttering?  And with Christmas only 10 days away, you're probably going to add even more things to what you already own. Even if you've already decluttered quite a bit, you want to learn how to stay uncluttered, as well as how to unstuff your schedule and streamline your budget. I'm in the same situation, so I started thinking about how I can keep my home clutter-free, save money, plus save all the time, energy, and decision-making that goes into buying new stuff. I already have enough. So here in the middle of the annual Holiday Shopping Season, I'm going to challenge us to quit shopping, at least for a while.  How many of the following items can you go without buying for the next several months, or maybe all of next year?  Come on, be honest – don't you already have enough of these things?  I know I do. Mugs and glassware (act...

It's true that our choices shape our lives.  Choose to gamble, drink excessively, use drugs, or sleep around, and you'll have to live with the consequences – physical, financial, emotional, and more.  Choose to eat donuts instead of oatmeal for breakfast, apple pie instead of apples, and French fries instead of a plain baked potato, and those choices are going to add up too.  Choose to binge watch, get hooked on video games, or scroll endlessly, and you'll have to deal with the results. All of that is true, which makes daily choices important.  You can't just live as if today is your last day – at least, not if it makes you decide to behave however you want, buy whatever you want, or take whatever silly chances you want.  YOLO ("you only live once") is not a good reason to be selfish or make horrible choices. But it's also true that it's never too late to make new choices.  Unless you're on your deathbed, it's not too late to change.  You don...

Minimalism is not about deprivation.  Owning less doesn't mean owning nothing.  Minimalism is about removing the non-essential so you have more time, space, energy, attention, and money for what is most important to you. And while that end result looks different for everyone (and may even be different for each person at different times in their life), there are some things about the process of getting there that are the same for all of us. How we make it difficult It's funny.  Whenever I talk to someone about what I write about, I often get a similar response:  "I could never do that."  "I wouldn't want to live without ______."  "I wouldn't want to limit myself." However, some people are interested in knowing more.  They want to learn how to approach a more minimalist lifestyle.  But they have questions too:   "My spouse wouldn't want to do that.  What can I do with his/her stuff?"   "What about my family heirlooms?"...

Remember when you had to plan to watch TV?  When Thursdays at 8:00 meant something specific, and you arranged your schedule so you could watch your favorite show?  If you had to miss it, you waited for reruns and dodged spoilers for months. Maybe you talked about the show afterwards, either with family members or coworkers on coffee break the next morning.  Almost everyone watched the same popular shows, and the collective interest and speculation about plot twists created cohesion.  Popular culture wasn't splintered into thousands of pieces, and you didn't find yourself bingeing alone like an addict. What we lose when we reject boredom If you're old enough to know what I'm talking about, then you're old enough to remember something else – boredom.  Honest-to-goodness, nothing-to-do boredom.  No phones, no content, no ready-to-go distractions.  Just you. This wasn't fun, but it forced something.  It forced you to rely on yourself – your thoughts,...

Calmness, for some, might be an inborn personality trait, but it can also be a demeanor you learn.  Certain habits can help maintain your equilibrium even when life is bustling. Scandinavians in general seem to be good at this.  The Danes practice hygge (pronounced hoo-gah), and it can protect your energy and add comfort to every day.  Try these six behaviors to boost your mood and bring balance to your activities. 6 actions for peace and simplicity 1.  Manage your light. If you live where winter is long and gray (like it was when I lived in Denver, Colorado), you can't just wait for sunshine and warm weather in order to feel human.  You have to treat light like medicine. You know how inviting a warmly-lit café can look on a dark afternoon?  You can create this attractive look at home.  Add dimmer switches to overhead lights, and use a mix of lamps to create pools of light, especially at eye level.  Keep curtains and shutters open as long as you ...

Tomorrow is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the U.S. and other countries around the world.  In 2025, more shopping is expected to happen online than in stores, but for many people, Black Friday shopping is still a traditional, social experience.  Even though retailers now offer Black Friday sales throughout the month of November and beyond, over 76 million Americans visited stores in person on the day after Thanksgiving last year, and a similar number are expected to brave the crowds and the lines this year too. Of course, the marketers that design Black Friday events and promotions are hoping to convince us that our lives (or our holiday gift recipients) will be happier and better if we give them our money in exchange for their products.  They don't just sell products – they sell feelings, aspirations, and solutions to problems we don't even know we have. "Expect more, pay less."  "Save money, live better."  "Because you're worth it....

Our culture has the wrong idea about happiness.  It seems to say that happiness comes from success – financial, professional, etc.  Achieving more money, more possessions, more travel, a promotion, an athletic record, or even a high GPA or SAT score is supposed to make us happy and satisfied.  Yet more often, meeting one goal seems to spawn two or three more, and we never stop chasing the next high. There's been a lot of research on happiness, especially in the past 20 to 30 years, and what we've learned is that reaching the typical milestones of success doesn't make us happy, at least not for long.  The new house or car, the big raise, even getting into the college of our dreams doesn't make much difference in our overall level of happiness, and can sometimes make us less happy – for example, if the extra costs of a larger house or fancier vehicle outweigh the enjoyment they give, if a promotion makes our work days longer and more stressful, or if the hyper-competi...

For me, Christmas means music, candles, the Christmas Eve service at church, and time with family playing board games or watching the old black and white Miracle on 34th Street .  For you, Christmas might mean your annual ski trip, dressing up to attend the Nutcracker ballet, eating cookies and drinking eggnog, or hanging Christmas lights and decorating the tree.  You want to create the memories and carry on the traditions that mean most to you, but you don't want to feel stressed or anxious while you do it.  This time of year is meant to be joyful, not pressured.  So how can you make things simpler, but keep what matters? 10 ideas for a relaxed and cozy holiday 1.  Begin with deciding what Christmas means to you. Give yourself a focus, and everything will be simpler.  Other things can go by the wayside as long as you accomplish what matters most to you. 2.  Choose a mantra. Make your holiday about one main idea, and remind yourself of it frequently....