Three Things Not to Do or Say This Holiday Season

 I have to confess something right off the bat. And that is, I really struggled with what to title this episode. I ended up as you probably saw, if you clicked on it with three things not to do or say this holiday season. In general. I like to consider myself to be a pretty positive person to be pretty uplifting. 

And I don't like to lead with the negative. However, I thought, number one, this might kind of capture our intrigue. Like if you know me, you're probably like, wait a minute. She doesn't tell me not to do things very often. What is she going to tell me to do? And the other reason is because everything I do, I'm also filtering through a lens of 

how is this going to impact our children?  Many of you listening have children. Some of them are younger. Some of them are grown, but over the holiday season, chances are you're going to be with your children more.  It's crazy. Actually, my younger son started college this year and he has five full weeks off. 

So he will be home for five weeks. I'm so happy and so excited to have him to have him here. My older one will get home a week later. 

And even if your children are out of college, chances are you're going to be spending some time with them throughout the holiday season.  

As you may know, I particularly have a heart for young women, but also I think it's important to remember that the things that we are doing and saying are being watched and listened to. And we have to decide if that's how we want to model. For our children, because is that what we want them doing or saying about themselves or to themselves? So that's why I'm coming in a little bit firmer on this short mini episode to give you three things not to do or say this holiday season.  One of them is what kind of words are you saying about your movement? 

If you were someone who regularly exercises or maybe you just don't as much during the season and that's okay. If that's your case, let's talk about the words we're saying. Is it, I have to work out. I have to get my exercise in or is it. I get to.



Maybe it's I need to, to feel better. I need to, because I've been sitting in the car for several hours and I just need to shake things out. 

I need to, for my mental health, Those are all fine things to say, and to model.

But I discourage you from equating exercise and movement with something you have to do.  We can need to move for our functionality or for our mental health. And we can get to move because we have these amazing bodies that can move, even if they're not moving as well as they used to. But we don't have to do anything. 

So that's the first one. The second one is let's remember how we are talking about our food. And I do not want us to be equating food with morals.  If you listened to the intuitive eating series that we did in season 21, this is not new information for you, but we really want to approach our food as morally neutral or food is food and we are not good or bad because we had particular food. This season offers us an opportunity oftentimes to eat different food. 

Maybe that has more sugar, maybe that has more just creaminess and heaviness and enjoy it. It doesn't mean that you have to eat the whole thing because more than likely your body doesn't want. Like all of the things and an abundance of them, but absolutely. We are not going to say that we are bad because we enjoyed the five liver layer, chocolate cake. 

We are not going to say that we are bad because we had the. Spinach artichoke dip or anything else? Fill in the blank. Right? So that's the second thing is please do not equate morals with food.  Finally.  Here's the other thing. And this is something that if you knew me 10 to 15 years ago, you would laugh that I am saying now, because I did this. All the time. 

I remember going to a Bible study.  It's the girl. Who was.  No.  And that is not everything needs to be. Healthified. Okay. We can just make the recipe as it is designed to be made. And yes, you can use the white sugar. You can use the full, better use, whatever the ingredients are because they're just not going to taste the same.  I have to confess that as I was prepping for this episode, I got a text from a loved one in my life. 

As you know, most of my people are very private, so I try and keep them private, but this is a loved one in my life. And she was talking about this cranberry relish that we will often have. Over the holidays. So that's like fresh cranberries, chopped up. And orange is chopped up. I can't even remember what else goes in there. 

White sugar, for sure. I think maybe there's sometimes like some green onions. I don't even remember. There's maybe some pecans, like it's a. I love it. Honestly, it's like so cleansing to the pallet and it's delicious and it goes great with Turkey.  And we had been talking and she said, well, I'm just wondering what would happen if I replaced the sugar with some bananas.  And I looked at her and I just shook my head and I said, I don't think that's a good idea. 

And she said, well, I'm just kind of wondering. And I said, okay, but I don't think it's a good idea. I said, I don't think it's going to taste the same. She texted me this morning and she said, well, I replaced the sugar with two bananas, and I think I needed 19 more. She said it was really tart. And I thought that's that's I understand why. 

Yeah. That's because sugar is not the same thing as banana. And then she said, and then it kind of turned a funny color, like it was kind of pinkish. So.  Health defying all of your food. Doesn't always go well. And let's just enjoy the cranberry relish with the sugar as it was intended to be. Because you're also getting some great nutrients with that. 

Right. You're getting the great nutrients from the cranberries and from the oranges and whatever else goes in there. So you just, we don't have to help a fight. Everything.  I remember going to a Bible study years and years ago, like this is before I started leading mine. This is gosh, probably close to 20 years ago. 

And we would take turns bringing the snacks.  I brought one time. And it was still good. Like I'm not going to apologize for it, but the host was kind of shaking her head and laughing at me. It was a chocolate dip that basically had like cocoa, some sort of sweetener, whatever, and had a bunch of avocados in it. Now, let me tell you it was very good. 

However, it still was kind of silly. Like just, just bring some, just bring a chocolate tip. Like not everything needs to be healthified. So those are the three things not to do or say this holiday season, if you can. So number one, it's do not say I have to work out. Number two let's not use morals with what we ate. You were not bad. 

So this is not what we're saying. We're not saying I am bad. And number three, you don't have to Healthify everything. If you want to swap some things here and there. That's fine. That's your choice. But not everything has to be healthified especially your cranberry relish.  Okay. That's all for today. 

Go out there and have a Grace Day.