Our lives are filled with things that make us happy.  In fact, I think that we often have so many happy moments in our lives that we often forget the tiniest gratitudes.  I was sitting at the dining table last night to do my German homework about life stages vocab and grammar when I was confronted by two German words:

1. die Freude:  the happiness or pleasure
2. die Baustelle: the building site or job site

They’re interesting words for a a chapter on life stages, huh?  They’re also interesting when you think about the happiness we get from little moments in our personal building sites – the place where we become who we are – our homes.

So today, pause.  What are the little things that bring happiness to your home and to your life?  Here are some of mine.

1.  The pause right after our family sits down for dinner. We’re together.  We have food to share.  And in that moment, everything is peaceful.

2.  Fresh vegetables and fruits. Sliced.  Arranged on a plate.  Consumed raw.

3.  Walking in the front door after a long day. Being home.  Unloading the school books, the grocery bags.

4.  Standing at the window, watching the people outside with their sleds and children, their dogs, or their cross country skis over their shoulders.

5.  Finding a letter from the United States in our mailbox because that means it isn’t a bill.  It isn’t a project.  It’s just something fun from someone who cares… and writes in English.

Just listing these things makes my day feel sunnier.  I know I’m not alone.  What are the bits and pieces we easily overlook… but mean so much in a really good day at your house?

I love celebrating the new year.  It’s a wonderful time to look forward and think about all of the possibilities.

It’s also a good time to look back – not just at ourselves, but at the people in our families who have come before us and who have impacted the people that we are today.

Pause a moment and look back.

I’ve been scrolling through pictures of our Christmas in Berlin, and this picture caught my attention:

It’s Martin’s hand reaching for a traditional holiday treat.  I’m not sure what he’s reaching for:

my Grandma’s fruitcake that she made for all of us in Germany

or

vanilkove rohlicky, the Czech cookies his grandma used to make every Christmas (my mother-in-law translated the recipe for me to recreate)

I can’t believe the two ended up side by side on the same plate.

Do you remember holiday treats your grandma used to make?  Do you remember traditions or stories from members of your family who lived long ago?

I find that the best way to keep from getting homesick for the United States and my family is to think of these stories and incorporate these experiences into our own lives.

When you find yourself overwhelmed, pausing to think of the challenges people in your family have conquered can really help.  I wish we had a holiday where we did nothing but honor our ancestors.  We could cook their favorite foods or do some things the way they did (assuming it’s practical, of course, because most of us cannot go to school on horseback).

But since there is not such a holiday, think of those people and the traditions they brought to your family as we ring in the new, beautiful year.

This month, I am keeping a daily journal of how we are celebrating Christmas in Germany.  A lot of scrapbookers enjoy taking on this type of project each year, and I decided to attempt it with a bit of a twist – the biggest being that we don’t have a color printer to print instant photos.

I don’t have fancy hole punches, stickers, decals.  All I have are my words, a glue stick, scissors and some pretty papers.  You just can’t find 99% of the paper craft supplies in Germany that you can in the United States.  At first, this frustrated me beyond belief.  When I did find something, I couldn’t justify spending the prices.  (Scrapbook supplies costs about double here.)

You probably know what I’m going to say next…

Turns out I don’t need all of the fancy stuff.  I can still put together a fun book.  It’s hard to remember that we can make do with very little.  We get so used to feeling like we have to have the latest gadgets and tools to do things.

I plan on making a December journal like this each year.  I imagine where we will be – USA? Germany? – and who we will be with.

Do you ever reflect on past Christmases?

Here are some of the pages of my journal:

I took the advice of Ali and made a bunch of pages in advance.  I just pull a page from the pile that seems to fit my mood that day.  Each page also lists the date and a heading, so it’ll be easy to flip through the pages in the future.

I sit down after dinner and write, then start my German homework.  I really like the simplicity of these moments.  I reflect on the day and the bits we’ve embraced.  Sometimes it’s big things like St. Nick visiting us on December 6th.  Other days are simpler, like yesterday when we found a cheese called “Christmas cheese” at the grocery store.  Some days have nothing “Christmasy” about them.  Some of those days are my favorite.  That’s when I reflect on what the season means and what I can do to spread that feeling.

And as you know from my shop, I’m all about creative journaling.

Have you ever had success with writing daily?  In a journal?  A blog?  Or if you were to write about today, what would you say?

One thing I quickly discovered about visiting in a country where the primary language is not English is – now this is going to shock you – people don’t really read books in English.  English books are hard to find.  When you do find a store with an English section, the shelf is filled with books like Moby Dick and The Odyssey.

At first, I thought I was going to die.

Martin and I would be visiting in Germany for several weeks, and I’d be out of reading materials.  (It’s surprising how fast you go through books when you and your in-laws have no common language.)

Then I broke down and realized Germany was my chance.  I realized I could walk away from Europe having mastered many of the great English novels.  Wouldn’t my old high school English teachers be pleased?!

* * * * * * * *

Fast forward to today.  I’m sticking to my plan… even if I have found half a dozen bookstores selling huge selections of modern English fiction and nonfiction.  The nonfiction is usually biographies about Europe’s most loved Americans (like Obama), but that’s another story.

Just like in the US, the classic literature is really cheap here.

And that, my reader and friend, is where I want to suggest a classic novel to you.  Go ahead and gag and remember all of the tragedies of high school lit classes.  But when you’re done, do you want to know who gave me the idea for my latest classic book?

It was Gonzo.

You know… the Muppet who’s girlfriend is a chicken?

Yeah… he’s the one who said during A Muppet Christmas Carol, “You think this is good?  Try reading the book.”

So that’s what I’m doing.  I’m taking the advice of a guy who dates chickens.  And you can take his advice or mine – whichever you view with higher (or lower!) authority on the subject.  But either way, we’d urge you to read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

The book really touches you.  It makes you think of life a little differently with each page. I’ve never seen a play or film of the story that captures this sense of giving to one another in quite the same way. Charles Dickens writes about giving from the heart – not just money and more vacation days or breaks for late payments.  He describes moments like this:

He [Scrooge] had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.  The misery with them all [the ghosts] was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever (pg 22).

I might as well confess that the book is pretty short, which we all like at this busy time of year.  Plus it’s so cheap.  Like this copy on Amazon is only $3.95.  As you’re shopping online or at your bookstore, include a copy of A Christmas Carol in your cart.  A few dollars to be moved like I am finding myself (and getting bonus points for reading a classic!) is amazing.

After all, don’t people always say, “The book was better than the movie”?

Then pass the book onto a friend who – like me and perhaps you – has seen countless versions of the story… but never thought of the original.  Trust me.  The feeling of sharing this book with all of you is more incredible than reading it.

Happy reading!

Is this book something you’re read or ever thought to read before?

(Image sources for:  Gonzo and book)

On Monday as I biked to German class, the air was chilly and wet.  The day seemed like any other day.  Cars filled the streets.  Mothers walked their children to kindergarten.  Retired women shuffled home with fresh bread from the bakery before more rain came.  On the outside, Berlin felt like your typical blah-Monday.

Except on the inside, I think many of us felt invigorated.  We were living in a world city – a city that has overcome so much pain and separation.  And we knew in our hearts that This Was The Day.

On Monday, November 9, 2009, the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is what I saw:

Here is the Brandenburg Gate.  Built by the Prussians, it’s been hugely historic and symbolic for various political movements.  Do you recognize it?  The Gate was on the East side.  To the left is a giant, temporary screen broadcasting the Chancellor’s speech.  It’s only like 2:30 or 3:00 here.  It’s dark and rainy (it’s a typical German winter. sigh.).  I love listening to speeches in German.  The speaker has to talk so slowly… meaning I can understand.

Here’s the other side of the gate.  Around 7:00, Hilary Clinton will be speaking as the Secretary of State for the US along with the elected leaders of France, Great Britain, and Russia.  That’s when the crowds come.

But we’re here much earlier in the day so we can see this up close:

Children all around Germany decorated life-sized dominos like these.  No doubt you catch the symbolism behind a row of dominos knocking each other down across the city.

We were hoping back and forth between East and West Berlin like it were any other city because today, it is one city.  I am touched every time I discover we’ve switched sides of the city.  The original wall no longer stands in this area.  A winding brick path marks it’s course (see it at our Berlin Tour on a sunny day).

The hardest thing to capture that day wasn’t the sights or the symbolism.  It wasn’t Hilary Clinton’s speech (in English) when we watched it live at home.  In fact, it wasn’t listening to the French president with German translations going at the same time.  No, the hardest thing to capture was the spirit of the day.  Germans aren’t like Americans – waving their national flag and flapping their arms or squealing and giggling when they’re happy.  Strangers don’t greet each other with smiles.  And I think that when Germans feel pain, they don’t burst into tears or start fanning their eyes like we might in the US.  Emotions are reserved here.

Most Americans struggle with this “lack” of emotion.  But I believe that Germans don’t lack at all.  I think that they’re very strong.  This country has gone through so much.  You don’t have to show emotion on the outside for you to feel it on the inside.  So on Monday, the rain set the mood.  It was dreary and cold.  I had to wear rain pants and blink raindrops off my eyelashes.  The rain also washed away a feeling of sadness; it brought growth and new life.

The best moment of the day was at the grocery store around 5:30 that night.  I was one of the only people there without a child under the age of five.  Mothers were teaching their children not to grab five yogurts.  Fathers were helping their sons wiggle out of wet coats.  It was just an ordinary day for all those kids.  For all those parents, the day-to-day tasks still had to be done.  This lifestyle of one united city and country and world – it wasn’t a dream.  It was another typical day in a reunified world.

(Images by Martin for Making This Home)

For a glimpse into what daily life is like in Berlin, enjoy our Berlin Life Tour or a Typical Sunday in Berlin.

For some people, a busy schedule is essential.  Being busy makes them feel important.  It makes them feel needed because no one else can handle things that they need to do.  So they create detailed itineraries and constantly talk on the phone or check their cell phones for emails and text messages.  The problem is… busyness never ends.

Even when you don’t want to be a busy person, you have things to do.  We will always have to-do lists and projects to finish, emails to write, meals to prepare, and enough to keep our hamster wheel rolling.

So my question is:  Does being busy add to our lives?

A while back when Martin and I were preparing to return to Germany, I felt overwhelmed by lists and really started questioning why I had put some things on our list in the first place.  Which things were essential?  What really needed to be done?  Several of you left wonderful comments about how if projects are really important, they will be taken care of at some point.  Two notes have especially resonated in my mind:

Powerful words, aren’t they?  It’s important to feel at peace at the end of the day.  Being exhausted from busyness isn’t peaceful, just as Amber and Nicole have discovered.

And the funniest thing I’ve discovered about people who like to appear busy is that they spend hours setting up the appearance.  They might spend an hour each day rebuilding their schedules, assigning a time for every duty that needs to be done – right down to “Play with kids: 6:45 to 7:10″.  They might also hang onto unhealthy relationships that actually do damage to their worlds.  But it provides line items on schedules and phone conversations on the subway to fill up their days.

We can control our schedules; it shouldn’t be the other way around.

Over the summer, you may remember that I shared a monthly goal with all of you – things ranging from taking a picture each day to creating a better beauty routine.  This month, I would like to try creating more ideal days.

I’d like to spend less time feeling like I have to multi-task… especially when some of those activities are just busy things I bring into my life (like free magazines at the grocery store checkout that only pile up in our house until I read them). I’d like to connect to the world and to people without being distracted. And those to-do lists?  Well maybe some of that stuff doesn’t really need to be on my list at all.

I think it could be a lovely introduction into the Christmas season – seeing joy in all of the pieces of the day instead of feeling rushed and a need to add one more to-do.

Would you care to join me?  Or do you have any thoughts on beating busyness?

(Images from a visit to the museum this weekend)