Hi everyone!

Welcome to this week’s edition to Five Minute Friday! If you’re new here, you may want to click over to this page to get the scoop on what Five Minute Friday is all about … we’d love to have you join us!

And if you haven’t heard, there’s a fabulous group that connects on Twitter every Thursday evening at the hashtag #fmfparty until the prompt is released. Check it out — it’s tons of fun!

Some of you were asking last week if we’ll be taking a break from Five Minute Friday over Christmas. Since Christmas Day and New Year’s Day both fall on a Thursday this year, the answer is YES.

There WILL be a regular link up next week, the week of December 19th.

There will be NO Five Minute Friday link-up during the weeks of Christmas Day or New Year’s Day.

We’ll resume with a new prompt on Thursday, January 8th, 2015. 

(Doesn’t it seem crazy to see 2015??)

If you’re already experiencing withdrawal symptoms and your hands are shaking at the thought of two weeks without Five Minute Friday, don’t despair.

I’ll be hosting a special edition link-up right here on my blog on Monday, December 22nd.

The topic?

If you were to write a letter to grief, what would you say?

The Letters to Grief link-up is in conjunction with the release of my ebook, Letters to Grief, which is available on Amazon for just $0.99.

I’d LOVE to have you join in … all you have to do is write a letter to grief on your own blog any time between now and December 22nd. It can be as long or as short as you’d like it to be. Then come back on Monday, the 22nd of December, link up your post, and see what others have written as well!

Updated to add: One Letters to Grief link-up participant will be chosen to have their post featured on my blog on Monday, January 5th, 2015.

This week’s Five Minute Friday prompt is:

[Tweet “Turn on your Christmas lights, find a cozy blanket to drape across your lap, and let’s write.”]

Ready?

GO.
Around this time of the year, the most common small talk question I hear amongst the retail workers, the bank tellers, the hairstylists, is, “So, are you ready for Christmas?”

And inevitably, the response is always, “No,” because, “I still have so much I need to buy.”

And those words just grate on my insides and make me cringe, because who says you need to buy anything, really? Then I heard a conversation between radio deejays about “What to buy that person who already has everything,” and I thought to myself, “Why would you want to do that? What’s the point?”

And I’m so glad that I’ve seen another way. I’ve seen that it is actually possible to step out of the culture’s commands to do and buy and give and hoard, and just be.

[Tweet “Just be present in the moment.”]

I’ve seen a place where the clock slows down in December and the sun lingers longer in the sky, and people breathe deeper and saunter down the sidewalks without shopping bags in their hands, and don’t rush.

They sit in a semi circle on white plastic chairs and drink copious amounts of Coke while watching meat cook over the fire, and they just enjoy the presence of the One who made them.

And I think about Mary and how she didn’t buy a single thing in preparation of His birth, and I wonder how it is that we’ve become so consumed by the hustle and bustle, so tangled in strings of lights, so filled with wrapping paper and stocking stuffers that we’ve left no space to let every heart prepare Him room.

Link up your five minutes of free writing below! If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your five minute post in the comments.

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