All I Want for Christmas is...

Hello Beautiful,

How are you?

If you are like most of the women in my world, you are ready to lie down or possibly fall down!

What a year 2024 has been. A year of change, turmoil, wars, and us getting used to our world being unrecognisable with inflation, supermarket receipts that take your breath away, out of control house prices, loved ones passing, and you fill in the rest.

One of my friends recently said laughing, "It would be a relief if the aliens invaded or the asteroid arrived and if it happened I would hardly raise an eyebrow.”

We need a rest from the news, the negativity, the threats, and the fears of what’s next and turn instead to what’s in front of us and reconnect back to the inner feeling of peace and calm.

Our worlds have catapulted into a future that in pre-Coronavirus we could never have imagined, something out of a sci-fi film.

AI suggestions for everything we do, whether it’s editing a photo, writing a headline, or redesigning our house. It’s as though we are no longer encouraged to think, create, or reach deeply into our imagination for our very own magic. Sure, it’s quick and easy and gives us a great solution, but our greatest gift as human beings is our creativity, our ability to invent, ponder, wonder, imagine, and connect dots like no other individual on earth.

Everything you see in the world, whether it is a building, a piece of art, a computer program, or Venice, started in the imagination of someone.

I think at this moment in our lives we need to listen to our bodies and rest. 

We need deep rest and recuperation: we need to swim and dive under a wave, walk amongst the wisdom of the forest, and breathe deeply the fresh clean air; we need to fill our souls with the beauty of our choice, whether it be the domes of Italy or the hand crochet edge on a linen pillow cover.

We need to have the strength and will to switch off our phones and other people's voices and listen to our own needs and wants.

We need to reconnect back to the fact that we have our very own incredible imagination and there is joy in finding our own words and way of saying things, of baking our own cake even if it isn’t quite as perfect as a Masterchef’s, and getting away from staring at a small screen and being entertained by an algorithm.

My year has been a big one — renovating a house, walking knee deep in mud as I plummet my way through learning Greek, navigating a new life in a new way, often without a roadmap (just the one on the inside!), taking care of cats, and attempting to turn a small village garden into a plethora of sweet tomatoes, shiny aubergines, and sweet smelling roses. Amongst all of that, my oldest and most faithful friend, photography, came and bit me again and we have been off rediscovering the beauty of life, just when we were boarding a train not knowing what adventure we would experience. There have been mistakes, big mistakes, breathtaking mistakes and ones that turned into belly aching laughter, they were so bad.

I realised when I moved to Greece that I became a beginner all over again, a novice, a hack, a YouTube video consumer looking for the solution to something I don’t know. There is so much to learn and I love finding the solution.

I said no this year to travel to Australia, one of the rare times in my 24 years of living in Europe.

I wanted to sit in stillness, to lie on the couch in front of the fire and watch the flames jump, to cuddle a kitten who had fallen asleep on my shoulder without the feeling the need to get up and do something.

I, like many of my friends, will end this year resting, enjoying the company of my friends, focusing on my immediate world and all the good in it.

There will be thermal springs and massages, long lunches and walks in Mother Nature, admiring the beauty of this incredible world we live in.

I know in the stillness the ideas will come, the energy will flow back, the excitement and faith, the hope and joy and I will be itching to go in 2025.

So I wish you a wonderful Christmas and holiday season, never give up hope and faith, and if you ever feel down, please allow yourself deep rest.

Wishing a beautiful Christmas and holiday season and deep gratitude for all we have.

Love and light,

Carla x