Exhale with me . . .aren't you relaxed? This is my daily afternoon ritual. Acting out this little string of to-do's completes my morning and ushers me into the afternoon with peace.
We each do our own little rituals to help us enjoy our days. But beyond enjoyment, daily rituals bring a sense of order, calm, significance, and joy.
We have been away from home nearly two weeks for Christmastime, and as much as I have enjoyed time at my sister and parent's homes, I am missing my daily rituals. My days are built up with blocks of habit. Morning, mid-morning, lunch, pre-nap, nap, post-nap, dinnertime, post-dinner, pre-bed, bed, husbandtime, metime, sleeeeeeep.
Time spent at home is so very precious. This filling of our days is what creates our home atmosphere, our habitat of peace or disorder, beauty or chaos. If I were a fly on your wall, perhaps I'd miss many of the rituals that have become life to your family. You could easily glance over mine, missing the significance of the measures that mean most to us.
I have a house full of littles and a baby that has yet to sleep through the night. This home dynamic shapes the rituals we follow. The rituals themselves follow after those gotta-do's, like washing diapers and wiping faces, and take the form of both work and play. They are culture builders, like reading aloud. They are also the sweetest moments of our days, like wrapping the kids up like burritos after evening baths and parading them in their "tortillas" back to their bedrooms for pj's and the singing of the first verse and chorus of "Great is Thy Faithfulness".
More than routine, rituals feed the soul. I am keeping my eyes wide to room (or need) for new rituals in my home to bring more life, more beauty, more meaning to the day after day.
What are your family's favorite rituals?
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