What an exhilarating day yesterday! It was Christmas Day, a day of celebration of giving and togetherness. As a child, all we think about are the gifts that are awaiting the rip tearing motion from our fingertips. As an adult, it’s the shear gratification of giving and watching the young one’s excitement and thrill of receiving. This takes me back to one particular Christmas as a child. Upon going to bed Christmas Eve, the Christmas tree stood there with not a present under the tree. I recall that it didn’t bother me too much because previous Christmas’s we didn’t have too much and it just seemed to be the norm of not having lots of presents, however this particular year was very different! My brother and I awoke early Christmas morning to find numerous unwrapped gifts under the tree, including bicycles for each of us. Later in life I found a picture that was taken of the gifts including pictures of our father and uncle having what looked like a walk back in time to their own childhood as they rode our bikes around in the living room. Those bikes looked like miniature doll house replicas under their adult bodies however seeing their smiles in the pictures was a present to me as an adult.

Times were hard for my parents but they always made sure that we had food, shelter, clothing, and most importantly, LOVE. They would go without to make sure we always had something special at Christmas time, even if it meant one or two presents. As a parent it was my goal to make sure my children always had plenty of gifts however in their own adulthood it seems they are in that very part of struggle that my parents faced in the 70’s. And although my husband and I aren’t where we were before the Great Late 2000’s Recession, we’ve been able to keep our home and pay bills. More about this in a later blog but for now I wanted to share my story of why this Christmas was so different for us as a family.

This year has been a tough year for us as a family. Although I practice Feng Shui in terms of abundance and the importance of being organized, it’s been tough teaching this to my very own son. We’ve always had this roller coaster relationship, guess the Aries sign has something to do with it, like two rams butting heads with love there to meet us in the end. While we don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to financial independence, daily living, or raising children, I’ve tried my best to be relatively supportive of his decisions in life. Sometimes it can be rather discomforting for me to see how he and his own family struggle but this is where I have to be strong for him in the sense of positive empowerment. We had yet another incident this year that left us not speaking to one another for a few months and while in the past this left me very sad, I’ve learned to give my worries to my spiritual guides. And every single hurt between us is filled in with love. Funny, I feel we both signed a BIG contract before this lifetime! And I’m forever grateful to him for selecting me as his mother because I have learned much from him.

What made Christmas day so special was the fact that the family was together again, we all set aside past hurts and made the day magical. That's truly what the spirit of Christmas is all about, not the presents, the gift of accepting with all your heart. Empower yourself to accept the gift of the present by being in the present moment. This reminded me of a bumper sticker that someone gave me in the past. I used it as a bookmark and just now, I'm wondering what book it's marking, hmmm wonder if it's a book about the love of a present moment.

P.S. You can also find this blog at the Empower Network. I'll be blogging more here... http://www.empowernetwork.com/awaken/

Kandi Phillips
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