Finishing well. Starting strong. How do you do that?
Finish Well. Start Strong.
One way Robert and I finish our year is to “do plates”. It’s an exercise in reflection.
In 2000 our family moved to another country – away from family and friends and everything familiar. After that move, Robert introduced a new Christmas tradition – we call it “plates”.
He brought a package of paper plates and markers/pencil-crayons to the Christmas Eve dinner table and challenged us to draw a representation of our year. Since our move, we’ve carried on this tradition and now have an impressive collection of Christmas plates:
Each year we bring the collection to the table and sort through the years.
There are exclamations of excitement as we review each year. Our kids have grown and one is married. Schooling and cars, trips and celebrations are all recorded. So are disappointments and issues. It’s amazing how an entire year can be drawn/recorded on a paper plate.
Then we create a new plate. It’s part of finishing well.
Sometimes we draw icons to represent milestones, sometimes we make lists. Words are very important also. Sometimes we give a year a “slogan”. My statement for 2011 was “Change. Growth. All Things For A Time”.
Once everyone at the table has completed their plate, we take turns showing the plate and talking about what each pictorial/word represents to us. It’s our way of summing up the year and it’s very satisfying to wrap up the good and bad and then look forward into the future.
Reflection – finishing well.
Before you begin planning the next year take some time with your spouse to reflect on the past year.
Bring out your calendars and walk through the last 12 months, and really dwell on the successes and challenges. Notice where God has given you grace and strength. Pay attention to who and what has impacted your life – maybe this will give you insight into what needs to change for the upcoming 12 months…
When it comes to planning the future, there’s a huge benefit in reflection. Huge.
And even if it’s not the end of the year… focus on finishing well!
Starting right now – how will you finish well?
Need some help in reflecting and reminiscing to make finishing well easier? Check out our resource on Gumroad!
*Update on doing 2016 “plates”… we’ve added a new member to our family collection!
A Christmas Game to Finish Well!
And we have a game we’ve played to finish the year well – it’s a take on Scrabble that encourages telling stories of Christmas events in your past.
Finishing 2017 well… other update pictures.
There are a few more than our immediate children/grandboy who joined in this year…
-01.png)
I hope to finish 2011 well too! I have completed every goal I gave myself this time last year and every goal my husband gave me, as well (each year, we give each other a few areas of improvement we see the other can make and we spend the year trying to improve in that area for each other). I agree that we probably spend much less time reflecting and move on to the next year. But this has encouraged me to spend more time in reflection on our successes and accomplishments before moving on to setting new goals and resolutions.
Wow – finishing well with completed goals is awesome, Fawn! And I commend you on your courage to give each other areas to improve within… 🙂
Great idea. I’ll be sharing it with my husband. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
We had a satisfyingly quiet Christmas, Bonnie – thanks!
This is a great reminder not to simply barrel ahead! It’s also a great way to exercise our gratitude muscles when we look and see all that God has done. Thanks Lori, and happy New Year!
Ann
Oh, yes Ann – being thankful is KEY. (even for the not-so-comfortable stuff…)
This is a great tradition. I will have to do something similar with my family, as my girls are teens now, and time is starting to go by even faster than before. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Thanks for commenting Dyrene – I don’t think Rob realized the impact it would have when we started out, but it has become a highlight of the season for us. The kids (especially our daughter-in-love) are very specific in asking WHEN we’re planning this activity because they don’t want to miss it.