“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
~Hans Hofmann
Happy Holidays everyone. Vacation has started. I will be online sporadically for the rest of the year as I tidy up this one and prepare for the next. I will drop in with a couple of important messages, and the pages will be kept fresh by friends of Writer dad. Please enjoy the first in a series of guest posts, as Dave Fowler tells us what the holidays this year mean to him.
This is my first Christmas as a stay at home dad, so it’s going to be different. This year is going to be better than any Christmas before. It will be more joyous and there will be more merriment.
Not because I have some meticulous plan set in place to execute with military like precision – but because I don’t.
I have no plan, other than to go with the flow.
Except for the purchase of a few gifts and a major round of early grocery shopping, I’ve done nothing else to prepare.
It feels brilliant and liberating. “So what,” shall be my motto.
There is not much that can’t be fixed by the careful application of personal attention, and who better to give it than someone not tied to a rigid agenda and steeped in the ludicrous expectations of a perfect Christmas Holiday?
I have fallen foul of this too many times before.
Whenever I’ve planned to design an event to perfection, it always misses the mark and finds its bulls-eye in disappointment instead.
Always aspiring to something greater, I find my mind is often elsewhere, thinking of something that has already happened or is yet too, but I am usually missing out on what’s transpiring right before my very eyes.
Not this year.
This year I’m going to be in the moment as much as I possibly can. Aside from the obligations I’ve made to getting fit, I have set no rules for myself.
The countless conventions normally set in place have been sidelined in favour of spontaneous fun and frequent dashes of hilarity. All my children have reached an age where they can fully experience the delight of the holidays, and I want to be present for them.
We are financially challenged this year, owing to the loss of my earning, but I can still give my young family the most wonderful gift I have.
The gift of a father’s time.
Being with them, playing with them, talking to them, and loving them, will make this a Christmas I will never forget.
Merry Christmas,
Dave Fowler
For those of you who have not yet received January, I am sorry. The problem is being sorted and you shall have it by the end of the day. It’s an automated email thing and I want to make sure people aren’t getting inundated with duplicate emails. If you want it immediately, shoot me an email and I’ll send it ASAP. To all of you who sent feedback over the weekend, WOW and thanks! I’d like to especially thank Jamie Grove for his 1000 word review. Definitely awesome and one.
