I used to rush around quite a bit during the pre-Christmas season, trying to accomplish my regular work work load and then fit all the other things in between, before and after - and ended up breathless and with misgivings and guilt about the lack of Christmas spirit - and Christmas cookies. This Christmas season is different. As a matter-of-fact, I put my whole book writing project on hold until after the holidays because - where am I rushing to anyhow? As Lewis Carroll's Alice said somewhere "the hurrier I go, the behinder I get." I love that quote. When my mind isn't into something and I'd rather do something else, or feel guilty about not doing what I really want to be doing, then I am not doing any one of them justice.

So yesterday I stopped my work work earlier than usual and decided to bake Christmas cookies with my daughter - one of my favorite German Christmas cookie recipes: dark chocolate covered hazelnut shortbread or Haselnußgebäck. Sure, I got less work work done (although even that is relative - measured against what?), but I felt more in tune with the true holiday spirit and myself. When I surface skim and rush and get one more thing done I may indeed cross another thing off that never ending to-do list. But that list is truly endless. More will inevitably be added to it tomorrow and the day after. That's the way it goes. So I had to slow that train down to something like "the more leisurely I go, the deeper I live."

And when I do decide to do work work I light a candle and put on some Christmas carols.