Have you been savoring the season? Making things feel festive? Shopping for presents or scheming about memorable experiences you can gift friends and family in an effort to help everyone have a little bit less stuff? Knowing you were getting into the spirit with me, I spent last weekend wandering Amsterdam, looking at Christmas lights and holiday displays in the shop windows, but I still have a lot left on my holiday season bucket list: order holiday cards (well, New Year’s cards, because planning ahead to do something kind of late is very on brand), make latkes, watch every Christmas episode of Bob’s Burgers. There’s still time. But mostly I’m daydreaming about that delicious, hazy stretch between Christmas and New Years, a collective liminal space for reading books and eating cookies and, if you’re lucky, forgetting what day of the week it is.
I think I long for that stretch of days because, for many of us, it feels like a time where we have permission to check out, fall off the grid a little bit. This time of year - most times of the year - there’s lots to attend to. Attending to the gifts we’re gathering, attending to the decorations, attending to the party prep and the travel logistics and making sure everyone we love knows when we’ll be where. All of these things are both, and: A welcome opportunity to connect with people and a lot to get sorted, to figure out, to check off our lists. Activities that both make this time of year feel special and can add a lot of stress. Magical moments and also other people’s feelings and expectations and hopes.
I’m thinking a lot about how we attend to things: how attending has many meanings - the meaning of noticing and paying attention to, the meaning of being physically present, and also the meaning of dealing with. December is about embracing contradictions: lots to deal with, lots to notice, lots of opportunities to be present. (See also: duality of presence/presents - is that too on the glowing red nose for this newsletter?)
Attention itself is a thing of duality: automatic and reflexive, yet also trainable and deliberate. Certain things might grab our attention instinctively, but we can also direct our attention purposely. And what we attend to - in all senses of the word - shapes our reality, manufactures our existence.
So much of cultivating a more positive wintertime mindset, of learning to enjoy the winter, is about harnessing the powers of our attention to notice all there is to love. Winter itself is a thing of contradictions: the light of candles made possible by darkness, the pleasure of a hot drink enhanced by the cold, the coziness inside intensified by blustery winds outside. What we focus on changes our experience dramatically.
Your challenge for the next two weeks is to really attend to what you like about winter. We’ve already practiced this over the last two weeks in regards to the holiday season, and now we’re going to expand that to winter writ large.
Attending to: Winter Wonder
Step 1: Notice what you enjoy about winter. These things can be small - in fact, it’s almost better if they are. Cultivating winter wonder comes in noticing and relishing small comforts: the warmth of your home after a winter walk, your breath fogging in front of you, the reflection of streetlights in windows. Practice wielding your attention as a tool, like a searchlight looking for what there is to enjoy about this time of year.
Step 2: Meta-noticing: pay attention to how noticing what you enjoy changes your experience of winter. How does your day feel different when you’ve spent time looking for the positives of winter? Does it get easier over time to notice these things? How difficult is this exercise on day one, or day five, or day ten?
Bonus challenge: Celebrate the Solstice!
I wanted to leave you with something you could do for two weeks, to carry you through the holiday right up to New Year’s, but how could I fail to mention the Winter Solstice coming up next week? The shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere is an opportunity for celebration and reflection: celebrating the darkness, and also the fact that the days get longer from here on out. Reflecting on the turning of another year. If you’re brave, I couldn’t recommend a Solstice Dunk more highly: find a natural body of water and shriek your way into a polar plunge on the darkest day of the year. For a cozier option, honor the day at home: have a tea party, make a cake, pour an extra large glass of wine and toast to the sunset. Just don’t let the day come and go without marking the occasion.
Don’t forget: I want to hear what you do and how it goes. Thank you to all of my wonderful friends and students and new friends and students who have written to me (I’m behind on emails but I’m reading them all). Let me know what you notice, what you attend to. You can share your experience here, or email me directly at kari@karileibowitz.com.
Notes from the Slush Pile:
If you’re struggling to come up with ways to celebrate the Solstice, try taking inspiration from Iran: pomegranates always feel festive.
Can’t stop thinking about torpor? Me neither: read more about torpor and lemurs, a winning combination in my book.
In case you need some more fun & cozy holiday presents, my favorite tea shop in Amsterdam - located in the city’s smallest house - ships worldwide. The rooibos chai is next level.
Hello Sweetie. I have been noticing the shapes of the leafless trees as I walk the dog. The tree skeletons are often beautiful in themselves and are only revealed in the winter. I'm also enjoying the birds at the feeders since I only fill them during the cold months.