I spent a *ahem* bit of time on Pinterest compiling images in honour of the Year of the Chickies. They are just so fluffy and peep-ily insistent, how could I resist?

Have you landed on your intention for the year? The clues are everywhere! One smartie that I know picked their intention from this list.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

While my twinkle lights will stay up for another week or two, the holiday season is done and I hope that you had exactly the time that you wanted and needed. What I needed was to celebrate Grinchmas, and, boy: did it ever get me where I needed to be.

There was celebration, nourishment on many levels, and time spent enjoying simple pleasures and silence. I played and created playlists and learnt some great lessons.

My favourite lessons were about choice.

• Choosing to co-operate and help instead of super(s)heroing.
• Choosing to shelve the “shoulds” and focus on my wants.
• Choosing to honour the years’ wild journey.
• Choosing to be the best boss in the world. (I like that one a LOT.)

I hope that you enjoyed celebrating Grinchmas with me: thank you for coming along for the journey!

The beginning of 2012. The fresh page. The choosing of an intention for this year.

Have you chosen your intention, or word(s) for the year?

There are a lot of way to get there. Chris Guillebeau has a great practice. My  pal Laura McGrath has a great reflection/visioning offer that I got to play with and would definitely recommend. Or you could try out some mondo version of a Fireside Chat for yourself.

Last year, I declared it the Year of the Wild Things, and holy macaroni: did it ever turn out to be just that! Through reflection and visioning, this year has a decidedly different tempo. Officially I am decreeing it to be: The Year of the Chickies. 

Why? Because I can feel things that are ready to hatch. Little peeps keep me awake at night, longing to be heard. Things feel fluffy and wee, but plucky and insistent. And while chickies need loving tending, they have big personality.

Welcome Chickies!

I am curious: will you chose an intention for 2012?

My confession is that I am a nervous host.

I love to participate and heck: I will even bring decorations, five types of cheese, and a killer bottle of wine. But my perfectionist gremlins stop me from opening up my own space: from putting myself out there and stepping up to the hostess plate.

And I am really inspired by people who do this frequently.

So I dipped my toe in the frigid waters and hosted New Year’s Day brunch for a group of family and super-close friends. My rationale, of course, went a little something like:

It’s brunch, how bad could it be? Even bagels could cover it and with enough Bailey’s and Mimosas everything will be fine. Fiiiiiiiine. 

Much to my gremlin’s disdain: it went off without a hitch. The food was lovely (high-fives to me!) and so, there were full bellies combined with laughter, music, and rowdy Jenga. Success!

Which brings be back (the long way) ’round to: The Best Boss in the World.

I want to be my own Best Boss in the World (more on that later I am sure), and on this first kinda-sorta back to work day after the holiday hulabaloo, the best boss in the world gave me the day mostly off.

To sleep waaaay in. To watch schmaltzy movies by the fire. To laze around, munch on leftovers and generally hang the heck out.

This was one of my many gifts this Grinchmas.

The feel-goodness rooted in the truth and intentionality of choosing to be the best boss in the world. Giving myself the day off to cuddle up and celebrate the opening up of my hostessing space. Time off to be grateful for the sharing of laughter and feel the buzz of anticipation of all of the goodness to come.

Wishing you a wonderFILLED 2012. Merry Grinchmas–out.

As a kid, the week between Christmas and January 1st was a bonus. Time to play, gorge on treats, be shuttled to one house or another, special nights out, fort building and generally driving the parents up a wall. As an adult, the in-between week feels different.

Weird and itchy different.

Like there’s something that I am supposed to be doing but can’t quite put my finger on it.

And then I did. (I put my finger squarely on that itchy little should-er.)

It’s Grinchmas time! I can do whatever I want during this week! And what I want is to gorge on Christmas cake. And make mincemeat tarts. I want to spend time getting to know lovely new friends. Do the work on my business that I have been sweeping into the corners. Dream. Nap. Plan. Cut out at 4 and drink red wine in the hot tub. Crank call some old friends. Wheeeee!

As T.I. would say:

You can have whatevah you like. (Hey, don’t judge my dirty l’il musical secrets!)

How have you been rocking out this in-between week?

If  you haven’t, there’s still time! How would you?

The holiday season is a busy one and it can feel like a blur of activity and preparation, especially if, like in my family, the holidays are about the feasting. There are a minimum of four family-related feasts in my world, which means a days of kitchen work, prepping and planning and generally cooking up a storm, which can leave the host feeling flat-line tired at the end of their celebration.

Whoo hoo? Not so much.

A week before Christmas Eve, my Kelowna family got together and made a plan. We talked about what kind of meals we would like to have, each picked a meal with everyone making contributions to each individual meal itself. The result:

No one solely responsible for one individual ginormus event. 

We are about halfway through, and it is working beautifully. The food has been wonderful and there has been a lot more time to celebrate together during events. There has been room for nappish, relaxing days leading into gorgeous meals. Bottom line:

The co-operation and collaboration has amped up the feel good-ness about sharing and brought about more time for true connection.

My meal is coming up: New Years Day brunch, which I am greatly looking forward to and have zero worries about. It’s going to be great: I have the support of wonderful family members to help make it happen.

How could a little bit of help make the holidays less like Stress-tivus for you?

Nono-Santa and Cynthia "Suzie Snowflake"

My hilarious cousin dragged this picture from the archives and sent it over yesterday. What a gift!

You see, for many years, the Gunsinger family Christmas Eve tradition was to have “Santa” (aka Nono, our grandfather) show up with “Suzie Snowflake” (played by yours truly) with much bell ringing, ho-ho-ho-ing and little prezzies for each of the wee kids. And there were quite a few wee ones at that time: six cousins and two of my siblings were under the age of 8.

It was so fun and quite a production: my grandmother and all of the aunts and parents played their parts: dressing, distracting, making sleigh marks in the snow, and generally controlling the melee.

While this is not a look I will likely cultivate in the future, my heart swells when I piece together all of the little memory-lets and let them play around in my mind.

So on the ninth day of Grinchmas, I wonder:

What holiday memories can you dig up in the recesses of your mind (or photo albums) that you can revel in?

The sweetness, the joy, the funny-bits, the poignant parts of holidays past, present, or maybe even future.

I am going to spend my day doing odds and ends with the intention of staying open to more of these memories popping up like popcorn.

Will you?

I am having a long, luxurious lunch with a new pal today and am leaving a drive-by Grinchmas gift for you. Marcel the Shell Part Deux. (Check out Part One if you haven’t already, it’s cute and poignant and makes you want to hug a shell.)

P.S. Love, love, love why Marcel smiles all the time. Because it’s worth it. 

Last week, I woke one morning from a tumultuous slumber with the remnants of a yucky, small-feeling dream still fresh in my cobwebby brain. I turned to my musical muse Danette for help to groove it away. She recommended the perfect tune, via hoop goddess Allison Tarr. Thus, Katzenjammer’s “I Will Dance (As I Walk Away)” has been on heavy rotation since.

Dancing. It. Out. 

And so, it struck me: Grinchmas needs a playlist. An alternative to the “wanna stab myself in the eye and maybe both ears with my car keys” mall tunes and the crud that is on every. stinking. radio. station.

The lovely Allison agreed to collaborate with me on a Grinchmas mix, and we spent Monday morning giggling and compiling. I hope you like my Grinchmas Mix!

PLUS: Allison went buck-wild and created her own Grinchmas mix, which is just awesome! Check it out to round out your holiday-listening pleasure: that is some uber-cool holidaze alternative music.

And on the seventh day of Grinchmas my true love said to me: “Dance that sucka out.” 

december dream board

One of my most favourite things to do with a brand-new coaching client is actually one of their first assignments:  project themselves 10 years into the future and write the story of their life over the past 10 years. So many good things come out of that process, it leaves them (and me) all glow-y and focused on the big, amazing life they are creating. *This assignment was brazenly stolen from the work I have personally done with the Uncompromised Ron Renaud.

Chatting with a colleague this week about this work, I decided to re-read the 10-year bio I wrote for myself almost two years ago. And you know what?

Everything and nothing has changed.

My voice is the same. My values are unmoving. But in the last two years hard lessons have been learned. And it’s like all I had to do was speak the words of my deepest desires and the path rose up to meet my feet.

There are physical ways this has unfolded, like moving and travelling and what I spend my time doing. But there have been emotional shifts too: in the way I hold myself in this world. In the care I take of myself. In the connections that have been deepened and the ones that have been severed.

So now what?

Believe me, I’m not saying that I jumped to where I lusted to be in ten years, in two. But what I am saying, is that I am further along than I thought and that I can definitely see “there” from “here.”

Which validates the impact of trust and integrity.

To my dreams. To cultivating and living the life I want. To planning bigger, and I am not even a little bit sure of what that is. But what I can tell you is that I am so very looking forward to playing with the vision of this love story I call my life.

Dream on, rebel rockers, soul searchers, and brave hearts.

Dream on.

photo block - my sweet fuzzy neighbour cat

I have been under the weather for the past couple of days, staying at home and keeping my germies to myself. To my surprise, the Grinchmas celebrations have not ceased over this time, and I have channeled my version of Martha Stewart under house arrest.

Celebrating Grinchmas over these days has been about noticing the pleasure in the simple things:

• The smell of cedar as while sanding photo blocks.
• Setting the alarm to get 30 minutes of morning reading in bed.
• Nuzzling up to the fireplace with shortbread cookies.
• Letting my mind dance through memories of holidays past.
• Vying for the attention of my heating blanket against two black cats.
• Finishing and starting and continuing paintings.