When I was a little girl, I made most of my Christmas gifts for others. My mom had a sheep collection–ornaments, knick-knacks, and everything in between. One year, I decided to add a new sheep to her collection. What could be easier? A little paper mache, some paint, and wha-la! I busied myself with glue and paper and created the cutest little sheep. I waited for him to dry, excited to add the final details. But then, I noticed an odd smell. Every day, the smell grew worse, until the stink filled my closet. It took a while for the penny to drop, but finally I remembered that when we’d made paper mache in school, we’d used a balloon and a thin layer of paper and glue. Inside my sheep was a wad of paper soaked in paper mache … the smell was my sheep rotting from the inside out.
More than any of the other presents I’d made, I’d been looking forward to giving the sheep to my mom. Now, what should I do? Should I toss out the stinky sheep? If I did, what would I replace him with?
In the end, I wrapped him up and put him under the tree. Yes, I did. I was hoping for a Christmas miracle, I suppose. I hoped his insides would finally dry and the stink would magically disappear. No such luck. We still laugh about the look on my mom’s face when she pulled that rotting sheep out of the tissue paper.
But the snort-hiccuping full body laughter that followed the unwrapping of the sheep did feel like a miracle. I did not create a work-of-art sheep. But, somehow even in my failure, I created the space for our hearts to connect.
My wish for you is that you experience a Christmas miracle of your own. Maybe it will be a fail, or it may be a win … or something in-between. But, it’s funny how failure sometimes offers the best kinds of surprises, the kind we can’t plan for, the kind that help us truly connect with each other.
And speaking of connection, I want to thank you for being such a special part of my year. I look forward to sitting down to write to you, my heart to yours. Thank you for reading, for giving me reason to write, for all that you create in the world.
Lots of love to you. See you in the New Year.
