My parents were very intentional throughout my youth to create traditions for our family.  My brother and I enjoyed a variety of family traditions as we grew up, including german chocolate cake on Christmas Eve as a birthday cake for Jesus (Dad maintains that it’s Jesus’s favorite cake), communion on Christmas Eve after attending church, stockings on Christmas morning, etc.  One of my favorites involved the stockings.

When we put the stockings away, my brother and I would write on a piece of paper in a sealed envelope, for our eyes only, some information to be reviewed next year.  We wrote down 1) things we didn’t get that we really wanted for Christmas and 2) resolutions for the coming year.  I think about this tradition every year, even though my brother and I are out of the house.  It was a great lesson to consider the impermanence of those things we thought we’d die without this year, and how we don’t even remember asking for them after 12 months roll around.  It was also a lesson in setting goals and living intentionally toward being a better and more healthy person.

This year I will:

1. Be more healthy and train for the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon, even if I just walk it.
2. Journal as I read the Bible more consistently.
3. Be hospitable more frequently with friends and family.
4. Make bread from scratch.
5. Travel to a city I’ve never visited.
6. Put more stamps in my passport.