My column this past week was about our decision to celebrate Christmas over 12 days. There are a bunch of reasons we thought this would work for us, and I suppose you could boil all of it down to attention span.

In the big picture, our attention is on our farm. Animals, like small children, have a way of commanding your attention. We have small children to fill in where the animals leave off. With our focus elsewhere, I didn’t feel we’d paid attention properly to the Christmas season. And, finally, I hadn’t paid enough attention to shopping to feel like I was anywhere close to finished in time. Rather than a sprint to the finish line, we decided to look at December 25 as the start of a leisurely walk.

Day one was….weird. Christmas Eve was weird. I wrapped one present for each child. ONE. The kids like to watch Little House on the Prairie. I thought about how in times past, one present was probably a great accomplishment.

Christmas morning had all the usual anticipation, it just went much faster. Clean up was easier. We had a discussion about the 12 days of Christmas, starting discussing the symbolism for each day. Everyone managed to focus, even the 2-year-old who is prone to running through the room announcing “I feel like a monkey butt!” or some other astute observation on his day.

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