Living Holidays with intentionality and tomato soup

Here we are dealing with flooding and waiting for our yards to be filled with mud as we await the promise of spring. Spring's sunshine waves at us to tease us, then tosses more snow and ice our way. All this back and forth weather makes one want to huddle inside to finish a good book until the seasons finally make up their mind! 

Speaking of books, I just finished Sacred Holidays:Less Chaos, More Jesus by Becky Kiser.  In her book, Becky calls us into intentional living throughout the year by taking some time to think through the holidays. She offers a range of ideas from simple journaling and reflecting, to more complex neighborhood parties. Becky covers New Year's, Valentine's Day, Lent/Easter, Summer, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Advent/Christmas, and Birthdays. She also deals with the topics of personal expectations, family drama, budgets, grief and cultural expectations.  

I appreciated her pretty well rounded approach to each holiday, and how her main focus was on loving people well and taking time to be still and enjoy each season. This is written as a workbook, with plenty of space given to create a mission statement, answer reflection questions, and make a tentative plan or bucket list for each holiday. Becky encourages the reader to take baby steps and not try changing everything at once. 

This book is meant to be a resource guide, and not a how-to manual.  Since my kids are so young, they feel like it's a special day if we just play board games or go to the park.  The point isn't to 'do, do, do', or to have another thing to stress over.  Rather, the goal is to be intentional with our time so when the holiday/event is passed we can look back with fond memories at time well spent. 

As you read the book, you can pick and choose which ideas are good fits for your family.  I liked the ideas of helping kids set goals for the New Year, having a thankful tree at Thanksgiving, having a summer bucket list, and reading through certain Scriptures at Advent.  With Easter/Resurrection Sunday coming next, I made a list as I read through that chapter. My kiddos would love having a "He is Risen!" party, as they love anything with special food, streamers, and where we 'party'. :-) Time passes so fast, that Easter/Resurrection will be here before we know it!  

Along with reading books, we've tried some new recipes while we wait for the seasons to fight it out. Last night, my husband made a yummy pineapple smoothie!  I'm hoping tomorrow to experiment with another tomato soup recipe.  The last one tasted too acidic on it's own, but went well with mozzarella cheese. I'm hoping to try either this recipe or this recipe that calls for a bit of heavy cream. I have many canned tomatoes waiting to be experimented with.  Do you have any recommendations?  I'd love to learn to make a tomato soup that even my husband will eat. ;-) (He likes tomato soup, but homemade doesn't always taste as good as the canned kind). This fits into my goals of learning to make 'all the foods' and of using up my pantry/freezer ingredients.

Sojourning with you,

Felicia

PS. I was thankful to receive this book at no cost as part of the Bethany House Publishing book review program.  The review was my own reflections on the book.