{"id":4627,"date":"2013-11-13T17:36:28","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T22:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4627"},"modified":"2013-11-27T21:35:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T02:35:37","slug":"inside-aurora-less-is-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-less-is-more\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Less is More"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s now coming up to mid-November, so you know what that means? Yes, Christmas is just around the corner.
\nI know, you\u2019ve only recently managed to offload the last of the Halloween candy left over from the rainy, wet and unusually child-free October 31, and still have a poppy on your jacket, but there\u2019s no time to rest between the seasons.
\nIn fact, you\u2019re probably already running behind on your annual Christmas to-do list.
\nAfter all, there\u2019s only six weeks left to decorate the house, buy presents, wrap packages, send cards (or e-mails), coordinate and\/or attend a bunch of holiday parties, children\u2019s school plays and other activities, spend too much time with relatives you don\u2019t see most of the rest of the year, bake, cook and overeat, do some volunteer work, and generally run around in a frazzle not having enough time to do everything.
\nOh, and most importantly, you have to take time to relax and enjoy it all.
\nAs if that\u2019s likely to happen.
\nBecause, if you\u2019re like me, there\u2019s enough going on in your life already just dealing with family activities, your job, housework, errands and appointments, and everything else that seems to occupy our lives 24\/7. And being occupied 24\/7 means there\u2019s 0\/7 left to fit in all the seasonal stuff.
\nThat\u2019s not much time.
\nEven if you manage to find a bit of elbow room in your schedule, that six weeks, which may sound like a lot of time, really isn\u2019t. So, if you do want to get in all of your traditional holiday activities, don\u2019t wait.
\nThis is because it\u2019s a well-known scientific fact that time accelerates this time of year.
\nOne minute you\u2019re thinking \u201cIt\u2019s only a month till Christmas – I\u2019ll have to get those decorations up outside when I get a chance\u201d, and the next thing you know, it\u2019s December 24th, and you\u2019re out in your driveway in a howling snowstorm, staring at a pile of entangled Christmas lights that you just randomly stuffed into the box when you took them down the previous year, and which are now entwined into a Gordian knot of such complexity that it would require several merit badge-seeking Cub Scouts at least a week to disentangle.
\nOne small plus is that we won\u2019t be afforded the opportunity to forget that the season is upon us, or even procrastinate, when we\u2019re being bombarded with all manner of seasonal sensory reminders over the next month and a half. Newspaper ads, fliers, commercials, store displays, TV specials, and you know the non-stop all-Christmas carol radio stations will start ramping up soon.
\nSo, brace yourself for the onslaught.
\nBut there is a way to help survive the chaos of the season, and even get into the spirit. That\u2019s by reducing your expectations, cutting back your to-do list, and taking things on in manageable chunks.
\nAfter all, it is a time for reflection and enjoyment, so you don\u2019t have to do everything, even those things you do every year.
\nJust choose a few annual traditions, and enjoy doing them in a sane timeframe.
\nAnd if that means you don\u2019t install all those neon reindeer on your roof this year, or your third cousins twice removed won\u2019t be getting cards, or you only bake one type of Christmas cookie instead of the usual eighteen, so be it.
\nTrust me, you\u2019ll appreciate doing less a lot more.
\nWho knows, doing away with or scaling back a previous practice or two each year to give yourself some time to enjoy the season may even become your new holiday tradition.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston It\u2019s now coming up to mid-November, so you know what that means? Yes, Christmas is just around the corner. I know, you\u2019ve only recently managed to offload the last of the Halloween candy left over from the rainy, wet and unusually child-free October 31, and still have a poppy on your jacket, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1cD","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 17:17:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}