Planning Big, Thinking Small

by G. E. Shuman

Christmas 2012 is over.  In fact, by the time you read this column, it will have been over for over a week.  How strange that seems to me, after all the planning, preparing, procrastinating, and purchasing that went into it.  Hopefully, many of us did remember the true reason for the celebration.  Along with Christmas now past, another year has passed with it.  Like it or not, for better or for worse, whether over a fiscal cliff or into a prosperous new year, we have all begun the journey 'round the sun one more time.  The world did not come to an end on December 21st., so we must be meant to continue into 2013.  I do hope your new year is a happy and prosperous one.  (No, that's not the end of the column.  You can't get out of it that easily.)
Christmas was a bit difficult for me this year.  Our daughter, Emily, is sixteen now, and her brother Andrew is nineteen.  For the past few years there hasn't been much desire to have us read "The Night Before Christmas" and leave cookies and milk out for Santa.  Big surprise.  But old habits do die hard, especially when you have been 'doing' Christmas with your children for thirty-eight years.  At this point, in our family, some traditions are slipping into the past, and even the remembering of some of these things can become a thing of the past.   But, enough about the past.
We have always told our kids, as they have grown, to plan big.  "Get a good education, so that you can get a good job!" and "Don't let your grades in school determine your future!"   I stick by this advice, and always will.  Lately, though, I would also advise my children and yours, to think small.  In that, I mean to think past the 'big' things, the big job, the big home, the possible big bank account.   It has been my experience that the small things, the details, are the things that will be remembered most fondly when their family nest begins to empty, as is ours. I would tell them to spend every possible moment, day, and vacation with their families, and to work to live, not live to work.  I would also love to have our children continue our family traditions, and would advise them to add their own.  That way, times like Christmas and other holidays will be truly theirs, and belong to their family.
The new year is just beginning, and, so far, it looks to be a very trying one for our world.  If so, family, and family traditions may prove to be more important than ever before.  And, if times become tough, such things may be exactly those things that keep us together.  Our future may well rest on the simple acts of planning big and thinking small.