I have two holiday parties I’m attending this week, I know that sounds busy; however, they are the only two parties I’ll be attending. For both parties I volunteered to bring some sort of meat. For tonight’s gathering it’s pork tenderloin…something that I love to eat but never really made before. Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking, I’m good at cooking and when it comes to meats it’s great to try out new rubs or marinades. But here’s the thing with cooking pork, it makes me nervous because unlike beef it’s really bad if you under cook it and it’s also easy to dry it out by overcooking it. So I spent the whole night worrying about how it was going to turn out…and after 3 smoke alarms, 1 burnt fingers and a lot of smoke, the pork looks and tastes great. But again I find myself exhausted and this time it’s because I decided to be a little overambitious and was up late cleaning up a mess.
During the holidays I think we have a tendency to pile on the activities and events, it’s rare to find people who only do one holiday party, or one Christmas event. There always seems to be a community thing, work thing and family thing. And it’s never as simple as attending, because we usually feel obligated to bring a gift, get dressed up, make something, etc. So going to these shindigs can be exhausting.
I know it might sound wrong but I would love to experience a Christmas where my weekends and weeknights are free, you know not do anything outside of being with immediate family? I would want to try out it out to see whether or not I really am at peace on Christmas day and the day after. How about you? Think about these two questions, “Out of all the things that wear you out, what would be the most difficult to sacrifice this Advent?” and then, “What’s stopping you from doing that?”