“Get back in the Box” doesn’t mean do as Jack-in-the-box does once he comes spurting out to delight a child with surprise, it’s what SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) do when they’ve gotten away from using the system in “Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise” the book my sister and I wrote in the seventies. The “box” refers to a card file box holding 3x5 index cards with household chores (one job to a card) written on them. The cards are color coded to denote frequency; yellow for daily, blue for weekly, white for monthly and pink for personal actions. More about the system later.

Getting organized starts with a desire in your heart to have peace instead of chaos when it comes to the important elements in life. We all have to eat so we need food in the house and time to prepare it. Unless we’re nudists, we need clean clothes so we need to do laundry regularly. We need rest, so we need to schedule our days to get enough sleep at night. We also need play, worship, exercise and friendship in a sensible routine.

When I was disorganized my husband and I fought constantly over the chaotic house. I was always out of food (but somehow managed to be overweight). I took care of the household finances and I was always overdrawn. Laundry was always piled in both forms; clean and dirty. Every room was cluttered and the master bedroom was the worst….well maybe the kitchen. Our cars slept in the drive-way every night because the garage was crammed with the results of saying, “Just put it in the garage for now.” I took this picture of our kitchen today, just to show you I'm living an organized life today. 

I was doing some holiday shopping at Michael’s (the craft store) in the late afternoon when I heard a conversation in the next aisle between a mother and her six-year-old child.

“Oh, Mama, look at this!”

“Uh huh.”

“I love this!!”

“Uh huh.”

“I have one don’t I!!!”

“Uh huh.”

“You made it for me didn’t you Mama!!!!”

“Uh huh.”

“Can you make one for Sissy?”

“Uh huh.”

As I listened to the excitement and love for her mother in the child’s voice and the drone of her mother’s responses, tears welled up in my eyes. I thought about how many times I’d done the same thing with my children when they were young. After all, the holiday season meant I had a centerpiece to make, a decoration for the coffee table to think about, colors to consider, people to impress and not enough time! 

The Cheddar Family is the mouse family that lives in our home. 

Merry Christmas from the Cheddar family! We hope your year has been blessed with good times, good food, great friends and lots of love and fun.

Our family has grown and it’s always such a blessing to celebrate new life, (way too much life to write about in our Christmas letter).

I gave my husband Colby a cellphone for his birthday in April and he loves the video camera that’s on it! He’s really gotten good at videotaping Terry and Pam, the humans we share our home with. These two are crazy and now we have tangible proof because of the camera!

Before I share the highlight of our year, I want you to know, no one was injured.  When I tell you what they did you could be shaking your head and stressing over what happened. Anyway Colby has a video for you, so I'll let it show you what happened!

Merry Christmas to you all. I feel so honored to have you in my life, even though I haven’t met most of you in person. I write for you from my heart and I’m honored when you send such loving comments reflecting your love back to me. I know how busy you all are, yet throughout the year many of you have taken time to share your love with me. And to those of you who haven’t written to me, I know in my heart you are a SHE just like me and I love you.

Lately I’ve been practicing being satisfied in every moment I can. Because I’m an optimist, I expect everything to work out and when I bump into problems, they’ll often throw me…for a while, until I can get back to practicing being happy moment-by-moment (or as many moments as I can consciously collect in my waking hours each day).

I meditate every day and have since I was 30. It’s such a personal aspect of my life I rarely share it because to write about it is akin to telling you how often I have sex. Ahemm, with that said, I’ll tactfully move on to why I'm sharing my spiritual practice with you today.

Here are some ideas to create Christmas traditions that'll turn into family memories you'll cherish for the rest of your lives. But before we get into them  watch this video we produced last week and you'll see a great example of families creating a Christmas memory.

It's been years since Terry and I decided to drastically reduce carbohydrates from our life. It was so FUN (even though I thought it'd be hard!) that I just had to write a book about what happened to us as we totally changed the way we eat and have never gone back to counting calories. In this video I'm reading an excerpt from "The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!"

I hope what I discovered resonates with you. We live in such miraculous bodies and they go all out to move us around our world whether we weigh what we weighed in high school or what we've collected over the years. This chapter deals with the realization of how heavy just five pounds is.

When you order "The Mouth Trap:the butt stops here!" audio CD set, I'll give you the printed book too as my gift. (You won't see those words when you go to order, but I'll be watching as orders come in and I'll make sure you get the printed book with the Audio CD set.

A Thanksgiving to Remember by Pam Young

My mom always fixed the Thanksgiving feast
The meal? A traditional winner
I know she rose before the sun
‘cause she told us all through dinner

As a young mother I decided one year
That I should take over the job
Mom was very impressed that I
Would volunteer to host the mob

For our family had grown to sixteen
With cousins and uncles and aunts
The meal involved some traditions
A recipe that came in the pants

A Thanksgiving to Remember by Pam Young

My mom always fixed the Thanksgiving feast
The meal? A traditional winner
I know she rose before the sun
‘cause she told us all through dinner

As a young mother I decided one year
That I should take over the job
Mom was very impressed that I
Would volunteer to host the mob

For our family had grown to sixteen
With cousins and uncles and aunts
The meal involved some traditions
A recipe that came in the pants

Of an ancestor who crossed over
On the Mayflower moons before
The Young family sausage stuffing
With ingredients more than four