I've been Christmas shopping since July. Really. I shop early in anticipation of this being my busy time. The presents have been wrapped since September and received their crowning bows, a couple of weeks ago. I keep a list of people and their corresponding gifts, which I've been marking through and checking off and fussing over for a while now.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, our friend, Mark, met us for a family photo shoot. With visions of a Christmas card, or more realistically now, a Christmas post, I decided we needed to tackle a picture of our 5 humans and 2 dogs as it had been a couple of years since our last official family pictorial documentation. You can imagine getting that many people and animals up and out the door- presentable and in the mood for smiling- was a stressor all by itself, which will require its own post at a future time.

Seems like I've been decorating Christmas trees and such since July, but, really, it's just been since the day after Halloween. Last week, in between working, I spread some Christmas cheer around my own house and, as of Saturday, I finally wrapped up the busiest span of time for the work I do. All the big boxes have now been checked. From here to Christmas, I'll see after the stores, but the worst of my busyness is behind me.

After going so hard for so long, I'd set aside Monday and Tuesday of this week to sit with a good friend, who'd had surgery. She'd just gotten home and settled in bed and I stretched out on her sofa trying to be as quiet as possible, so I wouldn't disturb her napping. I sat there and soaked up every drop of the quietness in her house. For the first time in a long, long while, there was no TV, no news, no music, no noise, no to-do list, no place to be, and no communication of any kind. She was in her room getting the physical rest she needed and I was on the sofa getting the mental rest I'd craved through all those weeks of deadlines and responsibilities and I have to say it was glorious.

Later that day, she decided to join me in the den for a change of scenery. We sat and just visited in the kind of quiet you'd expect in a place of recovery. In the glow of her Christmas lights and beautiful decorations, we recalled the simplicity of our childhood Christmases and their happy memories that still warm us to this day. She talked about her mother's simple decorations and their tradition of a Christmas Eve seafood meal. I remembered the dark green placemats my mother always put out and all the candy she'd make. Both of us had memories of Christmas Eve going on, what seemed like, forever in our childish anticipation of Santa. Compared to today's standards, we both recalled gifts being few, but how excited, appreciative, and taken away we were with each one. She remembered the Christmas she only wanted an Operation game and I thought I'd struck gold with a Life Saver Storybook from my grandparents. The holidays weren't near as flashy as they are today, but when our minds remember Christmas, those simpler ones seem to rise to the surface first. In the quiet we were enjoying together that afternoon, we looked back at a less complicated time and, for a moment, we were living it.

If you ask me about the moments in my life when I've felt closest to God, I'd say one of the times would be my late childhood. Around the fifth grade, I remember lying in my bed at night and crying. Not because of anything bad, but just overcome with thoughts about how Jesus loved me. And I could feel Him there in my little bedroom. It was before the noise of the teenager years rushed in and the pressures of adulthood elbowed their way through and before technology blared its loud horns and the responsibilities of parenthood filled up all the empty spaces. There was less noise then. Less to worry about. Less to distract a wandering mind. No, in that little bedroom with the yellow gingham bedspread and stuffed animals sitting around, God felt as near as the air I breathed. In that still, uncomplicated, simple place, I could hear Him.

Seems like we thrive on complicating life, these days. We have such high expectations and we have no one but ourselves to blame. We're continuously raising the bar and we cross the finish line of Christmas with our tongues hanging out and needing a holiday to recover from the holiday. It's a marathon of shopping and preparations and checklists. We think memories are made in big, loud flashes of celebration and success is measured by looking from side to side and love is sown in towering piles of gifts and friends are better by the dozens and Jesus can be found somewhere under the heap of it all. But, it seems to me that the most wonderful things in life grow best in still, peaceful simplicity. It's where rest is found. Where friendships form. Where appreciation takes root and where memories grow. And just like He came, in quiet simplicity, the voice of Jesus can still be heard there.

The very best things need so little to flourish.

Simply, a little peace and quiet.