Ep87 Sane Celebrations & Holidays

"So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God."
~ 1 Corinthians 10:31

Is it really possible to stay sane around the holidays?
What if I have real baggage from past holidays & celebrations?
How do I hold onto my values when the routine is thrown out the window?

In episode 87 of This Whole Life, Pat and Kenna dive into the highs, hards, and heartfelt moments that come with holidays and celebrations. Together, they explore personal and family traditions, sharing how their values influence everything from birthdays and wedding anniversaries to Easter and Christmas. The discussion goes far beyond surface-level festivities, unpacking how expectations, family dynamics, and even past baggage shape our experience of these moments. You'll hear practical wisdom about communicating needs, honoring boundaries, and keeping faith at the center of every celebration—even in the midst of chaos. Whether it’s prioritizing family, embracing compromise, or creating meaningful new traditions, this episode is full of relatable stories, smiles, and actionable strategies for navigating the busiest—and sometimes hardest—times of the year with both sanity and sanctity.

Episode 87 Show Notes

Chapters:

0:00: Intro & Blind Top 10
15:57: Highs & Hards
22:39: Principles of sane celebrations & holidays
35:56: Concrete approaches to sane celebrations (The Millea Way)
50:48: Challenge By Choice

Reflection Questions:

1. What is one specific thing that stuck with you from this conversation?
2. What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? Which holidays are most difficult for you?
3. When have you compromised with others about a holiday or celebration? What was that experience like for you?
4. When have you held onto your most central values during a celebration? When have you sacrificed a higher value for the sake of a lower value?
5. How can you identify and communicate your hopes and fears of an upcoming holiday with a loved one? What do you hope they understand about you?

Click here to register for the DBT group from Jan. 20 - March 24, 2026 (MN & WI residents only)

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro & Blind Top 10
• 15:57 Highs & Hards
• 22:39 Principles of sane celebrations & holidays
• 35:56 Concrete approaches to sane celebrations (The Millea Way)
• 50:48 Challenge By Choice

Transcript

Pat Millea [00:00:00]:
That my values can be lived out even when things are kind of up in the air and things are a little crazier than usual. And the most important thing, I think, is not sacrificing higher values for the sake of lower values. Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us seeking sanity and sanctity and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician, and leader, and I'm here with my bride, Kenna, a licensed marriage and family therapist. This is the stuff she and I talk about all the time. Doing dishes in the car on a date. We're excited to bring you this podcast for educational purposes. It's not therapy or a substitute for mental health care.

Pat Millea [00:00:52]:
So come on in, have a seat at our dining room table and join the conversation with us. We are so glad you're here.

Kenna Millea [00:01:09]:
Welcome back to This Whole life. It is another fabulous episode and another fabulous day to be with you, my love. Hey, my husband, Pat.

Pat Millea [00:01:17]:
How you doing?

Kenna Millea [00:01:18]:
My co host. How you doing over there?

Pat Millea [00:01:21]:
My co spouse, my co parent, my co host, my co everything, co owner of our business.

Kenna Millea [00:01:29]:
It is good to be with you.

Pat Millea [00:01:30]:
Co everything. That's a great definition of marriage.

Kenna Millea [00:01:32]:
Co everything. Earlier we saw something that said multi hyphenate, and you're like, what is this? That's what you just named a multi hyphenate. That's what that is. It's many, many titles, many hats.

Pat Millea [00:01:44]:
It's a weird word. I don't like it.

Kenna Millea [00:01:45]:
Okay, well, anyway, you don't have to use it. That's not what this episode is about. We're talking about holy days, holidays, how we connect what we practically do in some of the busiest, most high expectation times of the year with values and hopefully in a way that draws us closer to the Lord, draws us closer to each other, and draws us closer to being who we've been made to be, sane and sanctified ones. So that's our topic for this day, but you asked me for a little bit of time here at the beginning for a little something, which I assume means we have a game.

Pat Millea [00:02:22]:
That's nice of you to say asked, because I mostly just put it on the agenda and we're doing it. I'm going to turn my computer so you can't see because it's going to be a photo that you can't see. All right.

Kenna Millea [00:02:31]:
Overestimate my eyesight, so I think you're fine.

Pat Millea [00:02:36]:
That is very true. If there's one thing I Know about Kenna Millea. It's that long distance vision, not your strong suit.

Kenna Millea [00:02:43]:
So I'm good over here.

Pat Millea [00:02:44]:
So here's the deal, okay? We are going to play a game of Blind Top 10, and here's what that means.

Kenna Millea [00:02:50]:
Okay?

Pat Millea [00:02:51]:
I have A list of 10 holidays celebrated throughout the calendar year, some of them very secular, some of them very holy and Catholic. But there are 10 completely various holidays. Right. I'm going to start listing these in just the order that I wrote them down. Totally random, not in order of my preference. Your preference. They're totally random. You need to fill in from 1 to 10 as I go through the list one by one.

Pat Millea [00:03:17]:
But you don't know what's on the rest of the list. So if one of your favorite holidays is the first one, I say if you put it at number one, number one is now taken. And you can't put your real favorite holiday, if it comes up later, at number one.

Kenna Millea [00:03:31]:
Okay?

Pat Millea [00:03:32]:
So you have to blindly put them where they are, not knowing what's left on the list. And at the end, we're gonna figure out or we're gonna see how much this list looks like your actual order of preference that you would put them in. And you can feel free to obviously fill in any gaps about why you love or tolerate this particular holiday. Okay. And if you're listening, play along at home. Let your spouse or your kids know why this holiday ruins your year every year or why you think it's the greatest day of the whole year. Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:04:00]:
Oh, my gosh.

Pat Millea [00:04:00]:
Number one, all ten options are available to you right now. Okay. The Fourth of July.

Kenna Millea [00:04:06]:
So I'm just picking a spot one through ten.

Pat Millea [00:04:08]:
One through ten. That's it.

Kenna Millea [00:04:09]:
I'm gonna go solid six if I'm honest. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:04:15]:
It's higher than I thought you were gonna put it.

Kenna Millea [00:04:16]:
Yeah. Where'd you put it?

Pat Millea [00:04:18]:
Eight for myself.

Kenna Millea [00:04:20]:
No, no, no.

Pat Millea [00:04:20]:
For you? Oh, yeah. I thought you were a solid eight or nine.

Kenna Millea [00:04:23]:
Oh, okay.

Pat Millea [00:04:23]:
Yeah. You are on record of not loving the Fourth of July.

Kenna Millea [00:04:28]:
There's a lot of things that are hard for me, you know, as our kids get older, all holidays get easier. And the Fourth of July and the idea of 10:30pm fireworks, because that's when it gets dark here in the central Minnesota time zone, that will become more palatable. But as of right now, it's a six.

Pat Millea [00:04:47]:
Has it slowly climbed the list at all over the past five years?

Kenna Millea [00:04:50]:
I think so, yeah. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:04:51]:
So she's. She's rallying.

Kenna Millea [00:04:53]:
Yeah. I'm very curious how everything's not going to be at, like, places one, two, and three for you. Like, how are you going to ration yourself? I mean, I guess.

Pat Millea [00:05:00]:
Oh, I'm not playing this game. I. This is just for you.

Kenna Millea [00:05:03]:
You have the advantage of knowing the holidays.

Pat Millea [00:05:05]:
That's correct. That's right. Next up, next up. So now you have one through five, and you have seven through ten. Okay. Ash Wednesday.

Kenna Millea [00:05:14]:
Oh, pretty high. I love that you consider the choleric holiday. Holiday. I'm gonna go three. Three. Love me some Ash Wednesday.

Pat Millea [00:05:27]:
If one and two aren't what I think they are, I have some big questions for you.

Kenna Millea [00:05:31]:
Oh, shoot.

Pat Millea [00:05:32]:
All right. Ash. Ash Wednesday is the best box myself in here. All right. Because it's the kickoff of Lent.

Kenna Millea [00:05:37]:
It is.

Pat Millea [00:05:37]:
Here comes the suffering.

Kenna Millea [00:05:38]:
Some of the best 40 days of the year coming, guys.

Pat Millea [00:05:42]:
I'm going to be honest. I thought about putting Lent on the list, but Lent is 40 days, and you don't get 40 days in one little slot. Okay. All right, so three and six are taken. All right, next up, we have New Year's Eve.

Kenna Millea [00:05:53]:
Oh, gosh, eight.

Pat Millea [00:05:57]:
Really?

Kenna Millea [00:05:57]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:05:58]:
Based on your face, you're saving room for things worse than New Year's Eve.

Kenna Millea [00:06:01]:
I have a couple ideas.

Pat Millea [00:06:02]:
Okay. All right.

Kenna Millea [00:06:03]:
Maybe nine. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Again, the staying up late.

Pat Millea [00:06:10]:
If you can.

Kenna Millea [00:06:11]:
Yeah. If you can ascertain that sleep is very important to me and to my children. Yes.

Pat Millea [00:06:16]:
Which holidays are celebrated at 5:30 in the morning? That's what I want. Those are your holidays right there.

Kenna Millea [00:06:21]:
Ash Wednesday. Nobody expects you to be out late on Ash Wednesday. It's actually looked down upon.

Pat Millea [00:06:28]:
You get your ashes and you go to bed.

Kenna Millea [00:06:30]:
Well, you're so hungry.

Pat Millea [00:06:32]:
Take your ash to bed. That's what I'm saying. All right. Three, six, and nine are all taken. Okay. You're very mathematical number. The next option is Thanksgiving.

Kenna Millea [00:06:42]:
Okay. This feels a little incriminating. This feels. Yep, yep. I feel like a finger is being pointed at me.

Pat Millea [00:06:48]:
I am pointing no fingers at your list.

Kenna Millea [00:06:50]:
I'm gonna go five.

Pat Millea [00:06:52]:
Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:06:54]:
Which is high. I mean, it's in the top 50%. It's a lot of work.

Pat Millea [00:06:58]:
Way to defend your.

Kenna Millea [00:07:01]:
That goes really quickly and. Yeah, just. I don't know, a lot of, like. Yeah, a lot of intensity, a lot of pressure for something that happens so fast. And it's also not like Christmas where you take a ton of time off. And then there's also, admittedly, a little bit of the, like, commercial consumer pressure of, like, now is the moment to get the best deals on everything. And when you're, like, shopping for many, many people. Yeah, I do feel that pressure.

Kenna Millea [00:07:31]:
And it's not because we buy gobs and gobs of things, but because just a few things per person is a lot of things. So, yeah, I think between the Black Friday commercial insanity and then the meal going so fast and so much happening there, and then there's the parade and the football and going to Mass. Like, it's just a lot that needs to happen in a day. Okay, we'll talk more about Thanksgiving during the episode.

Pat Millea [00:07:50]:
That's kind of a lot. That is kind of a lot. I'll. I'll give you that. That's fine.

Kenna Millea [00:07:53]:
So I'll have to cram into, like, 14 hours.

Pat Millea [00:07:56]:
So to recap, you have the Fourth of July at number six. You have Ash Wednesday at number three. You have New Year's Eve at number nine. You have Thanksgiving giving at five. The next option is the Immaculate Conception.

Kenna Millea [00:08:08]:
Okay, plot twist.

Pat Millea [00:08:10]:
See what we're doing? That's right.

Kenna Millea [00:08:12]:
Okay. Okay. I'm just gonna be honest. It doesn't. I. I don't make a ton of plans for this. I don't. It doesn't require a ton of me.

Kenna Millea [00:08:21]:
I enjoy being at Mass when I'm there. So we're gonna go seven.

Pat Millea [00:08:25]:
Seven?

Kenna Millea [00:08:26]:
Yeah. I mean, I assume Easter and Christmas and maybe our anniversary.

Pat Millea [00:08:32]:
You're sure? Hoping. I don't know. You don't know what's left on the list? That's right. Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:08:37]:
Mama Mary knows I love her. She is not slighted by being number seven on my list.

Pat Millea [00:08:40]:
And she's very humble, so number seven doesn't bother her at all. That's fine. She'll take a backseat to the Fourth of July. That's fine. All right, next up, we've got Christmas.

Kenna Millea [00:08:50]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:08:51]:
Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:08:52]:
Well, now here's a question. Is Easter going to be on the list? And I'm gonna guess the way that you're playing this, and you told me me there are going to be some secular holidays, too. I'm going to guess. No.

Pat Millea [00:09:03]:
Trying to read my mind.

Kenna Millea [00:09:04]:
So I'm going to go numero uno.

Pat Millea [00:09:07]:
Christmas. Number one.

Kenna Millea [00:09:08]:
The Christmas. Well, yes, and partly because. Tis an octave. Right. As Catholics, we call it.

Pat Millea [00:09:15]:
All right.

Kenna Millea [00:09:15]:
It's like we tell our kids. It's such Christmas and Easter are such big holy days, such big feasts, that they can't fit into one human day. We get a whole eight days to celebrate them.

Pat Millea [00:09:26]:
Excellent loophole. Well done.

Kenna Millea [00:09:28]:
I'm. I'm going to take it as number one.

Pat Millea [00:09:29]:
Good justification. Number one. All right.

Kenna Millea [00:09:31]:
And now if next comes Easter, then I'm really up a creek.

Pat Millea [00:09:33]:
So now remaining, we have four spots left. You have 2, 4, 8, 9, 10.

Kenna Millea [00:09:40]:
I already did nine.

Pat Millea [00:09:41]:
You're really. Oh, sorry.

Kenna Millea [00:09:42]:
2, 4, 8, and 10.

Pat Millea [00:09:44]:
You have 2, 4, eight, and ten remaining. Great. Okay. You really went with the odd numbers right off the bat. Look for you.

Kenna Millea [00:09:49]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:09:50]:
All right, here we go. Next up, Labor Day.

Kenna Millea [00:09:53]:
Okay. Okay. I'm gonna go two, four, eight, and ten. Two, four, eight, and 10.

Pat Millea [00:10:01]:
I'm gonna go four, eight, 10, eight, eight. Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:10:04]:
I think there's one more on this list that I'm gonna put at 10. I'm reserving a spot. So I like Labor Day because we go to a school that starts well before Labor Day. We're like, a week and a half into school by Labor Day, and so it's just this sweet little break. You usually con us into going to the state fair that weekend.

Pat Millea [00:10:23]:
And thanks for that.

Kenna Millea [00:10:24]:
Your grandma hosts family reunion, usually Labor Day weekend. So it's got a lot of good stuff going on around it, and it's just a nice little, like, catch our breath.

Pat Millea [00:10:34]:
It is the, like, panic to get all the uniforms and school stuff in order, all the school supplies, and then, like, five days in, you're like, okay, let's just take a breath for a second.

Kenna Millea [00:10:41]:
Yeah, yeah. Like, catch our. Yeah, catch our. Second win. Especially before the fall sports start. So I'm gonna go eight.

Pat Millea [00:10:46]:
Okay. We had one of those, like, perennial calendars when I was growing up that's, like, made of wood. So you just fill in the dates of the day of the year. You know the calendar.

Kenna Millea [00:10:55]:
No, I've seen it in your house.

Pat Millea [00:10:57]:
That's what I'm saying. Yeah. You know the calendar in my house?

Kenna Millea [00:10:58]:
Right.

Pat Millea [00:10:59]:
I was confused for about 20 years because the Labor Day icon was a pregnant woman. That was the Labor Day icon.

Kenna Millea [00:11:06]:
Seriously?

Pat Millea [00:11:07]:
And I thought it was for all.

Kenna Millea [00:11:08]:
Your mom was gonna have a baby.

Pat Millea [00:11:09]:
For beautiful pregnant women out there celebrating their delivery of children.

Kenna Millea [00:11:14]:
That's a funny.

Pat Millea [00:11:15]:
I was surprised to learn later that it's about work.

Kenna Millea [00:11:18]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:11:19]:
I mean, labor is work.

Kenna Millea [00:11:21]:
I would classify as work.

Pat Millea [00:11:23]:
What do I know? But I've heard it's work. Okay. All right, here we go. We have three remaining. You have options two and ten left. All right.

Kenna Millea [00:11:30]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:11:30]:
Next up is Easter.

Kenna Millea [00:11:34]:
Okay. I guess two, then.

Pat Millea [00:11:35]:
Yeah. You're fine, right?

Kenna Millea [00:11:36]:
Yeah. I mean, I in. I really actually would have preferred to put Easter at number one and Christmas at number two, but I'll settle for this playing by the Rules. Yeah. Again, it's an octave. It is. I'm learning to love Easter. I traditionally have a difficult time with Easter because it feels like all of my Lenten, like the new habits and like, prayer practices that I've developed during Lent, just all go down the drain.

Kenna Millea [00:12:02]:
But I'm trying to. To turn over a new leaf related to Easter. So I'm gonna give it number two. We're gonna fake it till we feel it.

Pat Millea [00:12:09]:
You better get ready, because you know what heaven is? Easter. All day long, just Easter. That's right. Yep.

Kenna Millea [00:12:15]:
All eternity long.

Pat Millea [00:12:16]:
All right, Easter's number two.

Kenna Millea [00:12:17]:
So I've got four and ten.

Pat Millea [00:12:18]:
So you've got four and ten remaining. Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:12:21]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:12:21]:
We have two options.

Kenna Millea [00:12:21]:
I'm ESPing you right now.

Pat Millea [00:12:23]:
The next one is either number four or number ten. You gotta choose.

Kenna Millea [00:12:26]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:12:26]:
All right. Number. Whatever. The option that we're on Memorial Day.

Kenna Millea [00:12:31]:
Okay. Memorial Day. Interesting. So. So similar to Labor Day, Memorial Day for our life, falls in the last week of kids school.

Pat Millea [00:12:39]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:12:39]:
So they go Memorial Day and then four days of school, and then we're out.

Pat Millea [00:12:43]:
This year, they're done before Memorial Day because it's so late. I know. It's crazy.

Kenna Millea [00:12:47]:
So, yeah, it's the finish line usually. So I'm gonna go. Oh, man. But what if you pick this other thing? Okay, I'm gonna go 10. I'm just gonna go 10. It just. It doesn't really register. We're kind of just scrambling, getting teacher gifts together.

Kenna Millea [00:13:02]:
It kind of goes unnoticed for me. Maybe that is something I should look into.

Pat Millea [00:13:06]:
But I think this is a good point for me to thank all of our men and women in the armed forces for their service.

Kenna Millea [00:13:12]:
I don't know how this game turned into roasting me about all of my answers. Okay, it's fine.

Pat Millea [00:13:17]:
It's fine. In truth, I. I do love the way that we do Memorial Day. It's the Indy 500, which alone is like a secular fun thing that our family does, whether we go to the race or we just watch it. We're not a big racing family, but that one day a year is really fun. But then we always go to the Fort Snelling Cemetery here in the Twin Cities. It's a military cemetery, and it's a really beautiful chance to pray a rosary with the kids, to walk through to pay our respects to the soldiers who have died in battle or later on. It's really lovely.

Kenna Millea [00:13:46]:
Our own little Arlington.

Pat Millea [00:13:48]:
Yeah, I get that you're saving number four, but, yeah, number 10 is acceptable. That's fine.

Kenna Millea [00:13:52]:
Oh, no.

Pat Millea [00:13:52]:
So that means. So here we go. Number four, then, is Kenna's birthday. Congratulations.

Kenna Millea [00:13:59]:
I thought you were going to name Halloween. I thought this was still just roasting me.

Pat Millea [00:14:05]:
I was gonna, like, troll you at the end, but.

Kenna Millea [00:14:07]:
Yeah, so that's what I was saving 10 for my birthday. Okay.

Pat Millea [00:14:10]:
Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:14:10]:
All right.

Pat Millea [00:14:11]:
So that means Kenna's holiday rankings with these 10 are number one, Christmas. Number two, Easter. Number three, Ash Wednesday.

Kenna Millea [00:14:19]:
That does feel appropriate, actually.

Pat Millea [00:14:20]:
For Pete's sake. Number four, your birthday, not mine. Number five, we've got. Oh, where were we? Thanksgiving. Number six, the Fourth of July. Number seven, the Immaculate Conception. Number eight, Labor Day. Number nine, New Year's Eve.

Pat Millea [00:14:33]:
And number ten, Memorial Day. Happy holidays, everyone.

Kenna Millea [00:14:37]:
There's not a ton that I would change about that.

Pat Millea [00:14:38]:
Actually, I was going to say that it's pretty good. Feels.

Kenna Millea [00:14:41]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:14:41]:
Mostly accurate, I think, for who you are.

Kenna Millea [00:14:45]:
That was creative. That was a creative way to roast me. Thanks for that.

Pat Millea [00:14:48]:
You're very welcome.

Kenna Millea [00:14:49]:
Shall we do highs and hards and you can go first, please.

Pat Millea [00:14:52]:
I can go first? Oh, yeah, that's not on the list.

Kenna Millea [00:14:54]:
That's how this is working now. I was your contestant.

Pat Millea [00:14:57]:
Yes, you were. That's fine. All right. My. My hard lately is that there has been. There have been some good confrontations internally in my life lately. We have lots of different conversations throughout the episodes about interior confrontation, what that looks like, what that means. And there are lots of things about me as a person that are inclined toward disordered attachments and at the limit, things like addictions.

Pat Millea [00:15:27]:
Right. So we have a couple episodes about dealing and recovering from pornography use. And if I am sitting still, I would prefer to just go get some chocolate and eat it at any given point in time, you know, and some of that's really good. And it's worth to celebrate and feast when the time is right. But there's some of that that is attached to things too much. I listened to. I told you. I listened to one of the Pints with Aquinas episodes where Matt Fradd had John Crist, the Christian comedian, as a guest on his show.

Pat Millea [00:15:56]:
Typical Matt Fradd. It was like two and a half hours long, but I pounded it out through a couple days. And John Crist has his own very public story of recovery and healing from different addictions. And a lot of the things that probably weren't that meaningful to other people. I recommended it to a couple people, including you, and they were like, who cares? What is this? You know? But it was. It spoke to me a lot just in terms of like investigating and being honest about attachments that are not good. And even if, you know, I am, thanks be to God, clean and sober from things that are objectively evil. But even just the things that are like, numbing or distracting and if they're not attended to, could move in the direction of addictions again, you know, things like that.

Pat Millea [00:16:39]:
And you and I had a conversation last night about the ways that I spend money on coffee and what that is appropriate. And it was a good again, self check. Of like, it is not my job as a husband to tell you, my bride, what you want to hear. This is not some test that I'm trying to find the right answer and say the right words just to get you off my back. Like, my job is to be honest and to be real with you. And if we disagree about my honest answer, then we will work through the disagreement and we'll figure that out. But it creates all kinds of new problems for me to not be upfront and authentic about what is happening or what I want to be happening with my own life. So difficult and hard, but a really good, constant kind of ongoing examination of conscience, I guess, so to speak.

Pat Millea [00:17:32]:
So that's been hard. I think the high is getting into a new sports season. It's middle of November right now, and we've got basketball starting up for five of our kids. The levels are hilarious. We've got our twin girls who are starting basketball for the very first time. And it's like watching a baby giraffe try to stand up for the first time. Just like, cannot handle the dribbling and the shooting and the dribbling so you don't travel. Just constantly carrying the ball around the court.

Pat Millea [00:18:00]:
It's hilarious. Two boys are on the same team and they are both very passionate and they have very different personalities. And the way they handle competition is difficult and funny and challenging sometimes. I'm coaching our oldest son who's in seventh grade with a bunch of his classmates again. I coached the same group last year, so it's fun to just, like, know some of the boys already. Be able to mess around, try to push them, try to develop and grow. It's just. It's a lot of fun.

Pat Millea [00:18:25]:
So it's total insanity. Our three, four weeks of calm between sports are done. But it's great. Thank you, Matt Birk.

Kenna Millea [00:18:34]:
Yeah, yeah, no kidding. So, yeah, so my high and hard. I'm going to say that a difficulty is within this organization that we run that brings This Whole Life podcast, the Martin Center. It is. It is growing and that's a gift. We talk about that a lot on here, I think. And with that, our, our roles. And I'll speak for myself right now, like my role is ever evolving and ever changing and it just needs constant discernment and attention and yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:19:07]:
Continuing to consider, like, what am I actually being called to? Where do my gifts lie? I have growing edges in all sorts of places. So, you know, what capacity do I have to like, press into those and to challenge those, to refine those areas of weakness. And it just, it really parallels family life. You know that family life is also very dynamic. And you think you've, quote, mastered a season of toddlers or, you know, kids for the first time going to elementary school. And then things change and you're like, oh my gosh, like I've gotta back to the drawing board, back to the self help books, back to the mommy blogs, you know, whatever. So that's just, it's just a hard, it's not a bad hard. It is just this reality that we don't get to be complacent and we don't get to just rest on our laurels and be like, oh, I've, you know, been here, done that.

Kenna Millea [00:20:00]:
Like, no, it's always changing with that. The flip side of growing and ever evolving is that we just have more and more people that we get to share, invite into the mission.

Pat Millea [00:20:12]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:20:13]:
And then celebrate. So this past week we had just a night of fun. We truly just. There was no agenda, no state of the company, no business was discussed. I told everyone, like, we're not gonna talk about case notes or diagnosis or whatever. And purposefully enlisted someone, contracted an entertainer to come in and lead a game night and show us some magic tricks and someone to cater the dinner and just to really just nurture the relationships, which is one of our company's values is communion and relationship, but just to, to be together. And it was so fun. And I think because of the, the, the, the rightful responsibilities that come with leading the company.

Pat Millea [00:20:58]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:20:58]:
A night like that where we just get to participate with everybody else is really rare. There's really not many events that we do.

Pat Millea [00:21:04]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:21:05]:
That we just get to be along for the ride. And we really were. And it was great. And the people we work with are just awesome. So it was a really fun.

Pat Millea [00:21:13]:
It was so fun. Oh my gosh. It was goofy and playful. We were doing charades and people roll around on the floor. It was delightful. It was so fun. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:21:21]:
And just felt so excited to share something that others clearly are invested into.

Pat Millea [00:21:28]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:21:28]:
So yeah, that was good. That was good. So as I look at you in your red and white check, you are appropriately dressed for this episode on holidays and holidays and I called them hella days to some people. Sometimes these feel just like hell because of what all it stirs up and the history that exists for some of these. So here, here's my thought as to why we're going to talk about this today. One, it's been requested, people have asked us like, hey, if you're going to be about, you know, leading holy insane lives and holy insane families, like, we got to talk about this reality of these anomalies, you know, that, that cyclically occur on the calendar, happen every year. We gotta talk about this. Secondly, that, that I think part of what can, can ground us are things that we think about every day.

Kenna Millea [00:22:19]:
Our values, the things that, that make our family. Right. The Millea way, make each of our families unique. And that we believe we are living out our mission, right? Our own family's apostolate of sorts. And, and this reality that like we don't throw all that out the window when a holiday comes or when there's a family celebration, that those actually those celebrations, the decisions we make around that get tethered to our family's values, right, the big rocks we talk about. So it just, it is, it's this. It may sound like floofy and fluffy and superficial and we'll talk about some goofy things too. And we'll certainly share just some of the things that concretely we do in our family's life.

Kenna Millea [00:22:58]:
But, but I think this actually is a source of great stress and conflict. The busiest time of year to be a therapist is the new year. And people ask why? I think that's the. Why are our phones and emails just off the hook at that point? Ringing off the hook or inboxes are flooded because people are coming back from time with family of origin. People are coming back from vacations with their spouse, with their children, with their adult children, right? And they're like all these ideals, all these dreams, all these hopes that I had for what feels like the most significant kind of time we could spend with each other. It didn't happen and maybe far from it. And so they're reaching out for help. So I think that this is really relevant for most of us living in the 21st century.

Pat Millea [00:23:46]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don't we talk through some kind of abstract principles first about the ways that different values get applied to holidays and holy days, at least the way that we have lived it out in Our family. And then we can get really practical about some of the ways that you and I approach specific holidays and celebrations after that. And folks can take or leave. How about that?

Kenna Millea [00:24:06]:
Absolutely.

Pat Millea [00:24:06]:
Okay, so abstract thing number one is something that you are very good at and I am very bad at, which is managing expectations. I have Clark W. Griswold syndrome.

Kenna Millea [00:24:18]:
That's diagnosable.

Pat Millea [00:24:19]:
Actually, it is, yes.

Kenna Millea [00:24:20]:
Griswoldism, probably delusions of the Griswold nature.

Pat Millea [00:24:24]:
And not just for Christmas. I mean, Christmas Vacation is one of my standard Christmas movies that I watch basically alone every year. Because you won't watch it. The kids can't watch it yet. I think it's hilarious and so goofy, but it does present an absurd vision of what happens to so many of us, starting with me, which is, I want this Christmas or birthday or Fourth of July, whatever. The thing is, I want it to be like the movies. I want it to be perfect, the one that we all remember. We're gonna make memories.

Pat Millea [00:24:56]:
We're all gonna connect. Everyone's going to get along. The food is going to be done on time at the perfect temperature, and it's going to be appreciated by everyone. We have all these dreams and visions, and the dreams and visions are so good. What this does not mean is doing away with the dreams. What it means is having the dreams and then taking the necessary next step to say, okay, what does reality present me with here?

Kenna Millea [00:25:26]:
Yeah. So I mean, those reality questions of, like, and what's in my control about that? Right. If. If my dream is xyz, what about that Do I actually reasonably have control over? And something that you and I have learned over the years of being married around managing expectations is as we're going into something big, like Christmas, like a vacation, asking each other, what are your hopes? What is something that you. I know we talked about this in another episode. I can't quite think.

Pat Millea [00:25:53]:
In the Family Trips episode.

Kenna Millea [00:25:54]:
Family Trips episode, yes. So, like, what is it that you're really hoping to get out of this? And it's. It's so fascinating because, you know, one time for you, it's, I need some downtime. I need some quiet time. I'd love to be able to sleep in a little bit. Other times it's, I want to be, you know, with the kids. I want to go, you know, on the jet skis with them. I want to go skiing with them, whatever the thing is, like, yeah, but I don't know that until I ask and until we can have that conversation.

Kenna Millea [00:26:19]:
So, yeah, managing expectations for sure.

Pat Millea [00:26:21]:
Principle number one, which connects to the next two. These are almost like subcategories of managing expectations. One of them is communicating those hopes and fears to the people that you're closest to. So certainly your spouse, if you're married, if you are not married, communicating it to your parents, to your siblings, to your friends, whoever you're spending this kind of special time with, telling somebody else, like I really would love it if it turned out like this. I'm a little afraid that this thing is going to pop up again or that we're going to fall back into this pattern that's unhealthy. So communicating those hopes, fears, desires, realities, expectations first of all. And then secondly, planning ahead for whatever you specifically need for good holy self care and self soothing. So in the midst of Christmas with the family, maybe three, four days where the schedule kind of gets thrown out the window, it's probably unreasonable to be in your normal routine with your normal ways that you like to decompress, to come back to reality, to attune to yourself.

Pat Millea [00:27:24]:
So what are some small things that you can do to kind of carve out space for that?

Kenna Millea [00:27:28]:
Yeah, well, I mean you pointed to the biggest one, right? Which is that self awareness of knowing what is it that I'm going to need. I think because so many of us do and it's really quite beautiful. We have these expectations that being together, that being part of the event or being part of the celebration is going to fulfill us. And the reality is many of us need. Yeah, that's that time away, that time to reflect. One of the things that I learned when I became a full time working mom is like this is, this is my vacation and to be go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And then to hit with work again Monday morning after we get back from your parents house or from a trip or whatever. That was not sustainable for me.

Kenna Millea [00:28:10]:
And so I how do I work in the rest and the recovery from life like even in the midst of something like Easter or Christmas or the fourth of July long weekend at the cabin. So that self awareness of like what are those things for me? And you know that could be sleep, that could be continuing to work out. You and I have a long going debate of like for you vacation time is a break from the like grind of life which the gym is part of that for you.

Pat Millea [00:28:37]:
Come back next week for the Storytellers episode because you may get a little background into that little nugget right there.

Kenna Millea [00:28:45]:
But to be able to, to identify that is huge because no one can do that for you, no one can come into your garden and tell you exactly what's going to help you feel rested, help you feel rejuvenated. So you've got to be self aware and then, like you said, communicate it. And I would say too, you know, especially when it comes to communicating it with other adults. So you're going home to be with your adult siblings, you're going home to be with, or you're welcoming your adult children into the home. I remember one year we were going back home for a celebr and we had talked about this desire to really detach from our screens for the bulk of the weekend. And you like, really lovingly, but in this, in this way of invitation, like sent out a text message to all the adults involved and said, like, hey, I have this thought. What would you, you know, would you guys consider kind of spending less time on screens? This is just where I'm coming from right now. You can opt in, opt out, like no big deal.

Kenna Millea [00:29:37]:
But, but that, that communication, but it, communication doesn't mean dictatorship, you know, like, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, invitation over imposition.

Pat Millea [00:29:46]:
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, that's great. Next abstract principle that you and I have talked a lot about is having priorities around holidays that are consistent with our normal family priorities or my individual priorities, that my values can be lived out even when things are kind of up in the air and things are a little crazier than usual. And the most important thing, I think, is not sacrificing higher values for the sake of lower values. And none of these are bad things.

Kenna Millea [00:30:18]:
But there just has to be an ordering, right?

Pat Millea [00:30:20]:
And it gets very practical. I mean, we have talked about in other episodes, the value of spending as much time with extended family as possible is beautiful and good. Thanks be to God. That is a slightly lower value even than going to mass on Christmas or Christmas Eve, for example, or than going to Easter Sunday or the vigil, something like that. Than going to mass to worship God on these holy days. You know, we talked in our, I think it was in maybe the family trips episode, I can't remember. But the fourth of July in our family means spending time with your extended family. We love your extended family.

Pat Millea [00:30:57]:
We spend as much time with them as possible, including going to your grandpa and your family's cabin in Wisconsin. We learned early on that the value of spending time with your family is good and holy. It is also good and holy for our children to sleep and sleeping, especially when they were little ones, in their beds at the hours that they need to sleep and not imposing the sleep schedule of a 3 year old on your 23 year old cousins who don't want to go to bed at 8:30 and wake up at 6 the next morning.

Kenna Millea [00:31:29]:
We're all in a cabin together.

Pat Millea [00:31:30]:
Leaving space for everyone to be themselves to celebrate the holiday in a way that works for everyone. So we just go to the cabin for the day on the 4th of July and we maximize time with your family and then we go home, put the kids to bed, they're happy, we're happy and we're able to be consistent with our values, that we can live out these values in the order of priority.

Kenna Millea [00:31:48]:
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I think too you're really introducing this idea, Pat, of like rare is it that a situation doesn't have room for compromise and for negotiation and for kind of coming to the middle. And, and so when we go in with this mindset of gosh, I, you know, I wonder if there's a way at the outset, maybe it looks like either he's going to win or I'm going to win. Right? Parents are going to win the way they want it or I'm going to win the way that I want it for me and my kids. And to go in with this expectation of like, no, like with some creativity, with some time and with some honest effort, like we can come to create a compromise that can hopefully check a lot of the boxes. Maybe not 100% right of the boxes, 100% of the way, but that can satisfy these values that are good and at times come into competition with each other.

Pat Millea [00:32:36]:
Back to managing expectations. I may not get 100% of the things I want during this birthday party, but it's my party and I will cry if I want to. Final abstract idea is just to acknowledge that for many of us out there, for many people listening, there is like legitimate baggage and really painful experiences tied to past holy days, birthdays, holidays, things like that I was thinking through. It's a goofy example like you and I speak in Friends references pretty often. Chandler Bing has this like absolute complex around Thanksgiving. And he hates Thanksgiving because his family is completely broken. They're totally messed up. And all of his Thanksgiving's growing up were just a disaster.

Pat Millea [00:33:20]:
His parents were arguing, they were getting divorced, all these ridiculous kind of traumatic events.

Kenna Millea [00:33:25]:
Because it's a sitcom, right?

Pat Millea [00:33:26]:
It's a sitcom. But the seed of truth there is that there are millions of people out there who really do have like terrible memories of Christmases that led to heartbreak and abandonment and emotional heartache and birthdays that led to really difficult conversations, anniversaries that were forgotten completely by their spouse, you know, And I say that because I think there's real value in identifying those painful memories and the emotions that come from them, in confronting those emotions and then doing any kind of work necessary not to forget them. The goal isn't to forget the bad things that were happened, but just to release their grasp on what your present and future look like. That your past does not dictate what this Thanksgiving or this New Year's Eve or this Valentine's Day looks like.

Kenna Millea [00:34:20]:
Yeah. I mean, it certainly can inform, you know, what. What you need.

Pat Millea [00:34:23]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:34:25]:
I mean, again, I think the goofiness in that episode is that he doesn't eat Thanksgiving food. Like, on Thanksgiving Day, he wants to eat something other than the turkey. Right. Like, that's. That's a metaphor for this idea of, like, yeah, so what do I need in order to be able to move through it or to be able to cope with the presence of that painful reminder? But, yeah, you're right. There's a lot that goes on for many of us related to the holidays.

Pat Millea [00:34:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's get concrete. You want to start off with the very first example of some things that we do to keep our values consistent.

Kenna Millea [00:34:54]:
Yeah. So, you know, when I was thinking about, gosh, what things have developed over time that might even, like, inspire our listeners to consider, oh, yeah, that. That is connected to my value. Like, we just started doing this thing, but, gosh, that really is connected.

Pat Millea [00:35:13]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:35:14]:
So one of those is around birthdays. So two things are, one, that we don't do kid birthday parties, and instead we do a dinner with godparents. If godparents are out of town, then that child gets to just pick a good buddy and invite their family, but it's not a friend party. And thinking about how that has really allowed us to. To invest in this value of, like, meaningful relationships, like, meaningful connections. And our children didn't have a say in who their godparents are, but. But we chose them for a specific reason. And we believe that, you know, our.

Kenna Millea [00:35:53]:
Our children's godparents are models of faith that we want our kids to know. And so we've got to give them those opportunities, especially in those awkward teen years. Got to give them those opportunities. And so that is a decision that's. That's a way we've lived out that value. The second thing, which I know we've talked about in other episodes, are birthday outings that we don't give our children gifts. We Sound really awesome. We don't do gifts and instead we do outings.

Kenna Millea [00:36:17]:
And I think the value in that is. And as our kids get older, I can see that this increases. Back in the day, I think it was just because you and I really personally love experiences over things and that just was like so natural for us.

Pat Millea [00:36:31]:
And just time with people that we love and we're no different. If you're listening, you love time with people you love too. But really funneling that value into this expression within birthdays.

Kenna Millea [00:36:42]:
Well, and as our family has grown, that's become more important. But. But thinking to as our kids get older that it's a time for us to be all in on something our kids are interested in. Right. We've got one kid right now who's actually really hoping upon hope that the Vikings are terrible because that's the only way he's going to get Vikings tickets for his birthday outing because currently they are outside of the birthday outing.

Pat Millea [00:37:03]:
Budget him a couple months ago, like, this is. This is outside the budget, buddy. But if you root for like a 3 and 14 season, we might be there for ticket prices are going to come down in December, I'll tell you that right now.

Kenna Millea [00:37:14]:
So. But it's, but it's a chance for us to really step back and to let our kids individuality and their unique interests be at the center. You know, to go play video games with a kid who's really into arcade games, to go paint pottery with a, a, with a daughter who's really into that. Like. So I just. Yeah, it connects to that value of really showing them. Like, we delight in you and we want to reflect back your dignity with, with our investment in this thing.

Pat Millea [00:37:43]:
Yeah. And especially with, you know, it, if you have a child, even if it's not seven kids or more like us, you know, one child getting time with their two parents, two on one is just a magical time for a kid. I mean, even if two parents have one child, how often does that child get the undivided, focused, and very intentional attention of their two parents at the same time? You know, it just. The nature of life is that people are going different directions. That's fine, that's necessary. That's good. But man, it's really special to have that kind of focus. Time.

Pat Millea [00:38:18]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:38:19]:
So the second one I want to talk about is anniversaries. And this is something that we had received a lot of like, counsel and opinion from people older than us when we were getting married. So two things. One is we always take a trip, an overnight of some sort. Even if it's just one night, I can think back to, I think it was our 10th anniversary. Right. We took the twins with us, which is a little bit of a no, no. But we were like, you know what.

Pat Millea [00:38:50]:
This, it felt like a no, no when they were screaming in the hotel.

Kenna Millea [00:38:55]:
They were three months old. So we were like, you know, that might be a lot for a nanny to handle, but. But to have that time away and to really set the precedent in the, quote, honeymoon period of our marriage. Because, man, there were years where it felt like financially next to near impossible or, you know, time wise with work or, you know, what have you, or just energy wise in years of young kids. And it was like. But it was already written into the rhythm of our year. And throughout the year we have conversations about, gosh, wouldn't that be fun if we did that for an anniversary trip sometime? Or. And so it's just this built in way of dreaming together, which again is such a piece of our values of keeping the novelty and the newness and the joy and the spontaneity in our marriage.

Kenna Millea [00:39:41]:
So, yeah, I was thinking about how a couple years we offered to do like childcare swaps with friends so that that couple could get away for their anniversary and we could get. No one ever took us up on that. And I just wonder why that is. And I, I'm reflecting and I'm feeling a little slighted right now to all my friends that I often, because maybe.

Pat Millea [00:39:57]:
When people look at the Millea children, it sounds like we're saying to them, here's the deal. How about you give me $100 and I'll give you $10? How about that? Does that sound fair? Is that good? There's a Nate Bargatze bit about him agreeing to babysit his friend's sons and in exchange for his friend babysitting his daughter. Yeah. And he said, I thought that was a fair trade. I was dead wrong. You get to watch my sweet little precious angel. And I'm taking in these three rabid dogs into my house. Brilliant.

Kenna Millea [00:40:34]:
Yeah, maybe something like that. The other thing that we do that is a value because we talk to our kids so much about our marriage being the cornerstone of our family. Right. Every time we go on a date night and a little girl is clinging to our leg, don't leave me. Don't make my brother tuck me in.

Pat Millea [00:40:49]:
Yep.

Kenna Millea [00:40:50]:
And we say, like, this is so important. This is actually for our family that daddy and I are getting away. We are going to be a better mommy and daddy when we come back, but is sharing videos, sharing pictures of our wedding. I'm realizing that I don't know how we're going to do that going forward because we no longer have a DVD player and that is where our wedding video is. But like drawing them into that, like, like sharing with them the origin of the family. Like you weren't there to remember this, but this is what happened. And especially getting to see like deceased family members, like in the videos and pictures, like, it's really sweet. So that's anniversaries and it's a holiday.

Pat Millea [00:41:25]:
And just a minor explanation, by the way, none of our anniversary trips have taken us to like Fiji. Right? No, these are not extravagant. No, absurd. One time we went week long vacations.

Kenna Millea [00:41:35]:
Up to the North Shore where it was 62 degrees in July.

Pat Millea [00:41:39]:
That's true. So we're talking La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Kenna Millea [00:41:42]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pat Millea [00:41:43]:
One anniversary we went to downtown Minneapolis.

Kenna Millea [00:41:46]:
True story.

Pat Millea [00:41:46]:
Which is 25 minutes from our house.

Kenna Millea [00:41:49]:
Stuck in the rain.

Pat Millea [00:41:49]:
So it was amazing.

Kenna Millea [00:41:52]:
Okay. Maybe one of your favorites, Easter. So this one, I think, yeah. This is really fascinating to me. Right. When we got engaged, Pat, you really put a stake in the ground and said, we will always stay home for Easter. We were trying to figure out holidays that year.

Pat Millea [00:42:11]:
Right, Right.

Kenna Millea [00:42:11]:
And we had agreed that Thanksgiving, navigating.

Pat Millea [00:42:13]:
Holidays with extended family, which side are we going to visit or host? Right.

Kenna Millea [00:42:17]:
And so we'll talk about Thanksgiving, Christmas in just a second. But so, so that we figured out pretty quickly. And then you were like, but Easter. And part of it was because we were working in parishes and some of our job connected to like needing to be at the parish. Right, but, but, but you said like as a matter of principle, as a matter of living out our values, we are going to stay at our home parish. Like these are the holiest days and we want, we, we observe them in particular ways. Right. With particular types of food, with silence, just with.

Kenna Millea [00:42:46]:
Yeah, with prayer, you know, being at the parish for the liturgy of the hours, different things like that. And you said, and I thought this was really beautiful. Like you were like, we aren't going to go somewhere and impose upon them the expectation that they will also be silent or that they will also eat in a particular way to kind of match the movement of those, that, those holy days. And, and also we go to the Easter vigil, which is a really, you know, it's becoming more popular, but it was a unique thing, you know, even 15 years ago. And that's just a really different schedule because we don't go to Mass on Easter morning. And most people like, what are you doing?

Pat Millea [00:43:19]:
Right, right.

Kenna Millea [00:43:20]:
And we're in our jammies and, you know, lounging around for most of the day. So. So just again, to. To be able to say, to go back to what you said earlier of like, managing expectations, communicating those. That was a situation where you were like, wow, our expectations are so big and feel really non negotiable that we're not going to try to bring those into someone else's home, on their turf, be a guest in their house and carry all those with us. Like, this is actually really, really, really important to us. There's also just the value of us getting to be with our parish community, our parish family, and enter into Easter with them. But that was.

Kenna Millea [00:43:56]:
I mean, that's literally been. Since we were engaged. You had that vision, and I think that that has borne a lot of fruit for our family culture.

Pat Millea [00:44:05]:
Yeah, yeah. It's the beginning of it, I think at least the seed of it. I don't know if I connected it at the time, but we going to college at Notre Dame. One of the grassroots Catholic things that people say a lot at Notre Dame is you have to stay on campus for at least one Holy Week, right? Everyone else, there's an Easter break, we get done, what, maybe Wednesday of Holy Week, people can go home. Almost everyone does. But there was this understanding among, you know, very faithful folks, of which there are many at Notre Dame. I don't care what people say, there are many of them. At least once you have to stay for the Triduum specifically, because the liturgical beauty and the way that you can celebrate at Notre Dame is just one of a kind.

Pat Millea [00:44:49]:
And so my senior year, my best friend came from his college to South Bend. We went to all the Triduum stuff together. It was spectacular and just so beautiful. And I think that was just that little first seed of, like, this is a different kind of holiday. Like, Christmas is glorious and it's number two on your list for a reason. It's beautiful. But that's a holiday that's a little easier to manage either hosting family, traveling to visit family, inviting other people into the practice. You can more easily work the values of family and celebrating into the values of liturgical living.

Pat Millea [00:45:25]:
But the Triduum is just a different thing. Even that's a different level than Christmas. Good Friday is its own beautiful thing. Holy Thursday, the night before Holy Saturday has its own very particular spirit to it of just quiet and stillness and waiting. The vigil is this triumphant three hour Mass and then you can party immediately. You don't have to wait for Sunday morning. It started with that little seed of, like, you have to experience this in its fullness somehow. And just really holding onto that value has been beautiful for our family, for sure.

Pat Millea [00:45:59]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:46:00]:
Well, let's talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas then.

Pat Millea [00:46:02]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:46:03]:
So for us, I'd love to. Very early on, thankfully, all families agreed to just do this every other rate. So we alternate Thanksgiving, Christmas, then we switch it for the following year. And somehow we were the first to be married in each of our families. But everyone who's come into the family, it's just continued to just fold into that and. And our extended families have been really accepting of. Yeah. How.

Kenna Millea [00:46:24]:
How that rhythm has worked out.

Pat Millea [00:46:26]:
So shout out to the siblings for them. Just working into the structure that we set. Well, incidentally.

Kenna Millea [00:46:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope. I hope it's working for everybody. Like, I hope it's a situation that's working for everyone.

Pat Millea [00:46:34]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:46:36]:
But I. I think that even even though I could tell you where we're going to be in 2037, like, I could tell you where we will be for Christmas of 2037, there are still things to communicate and there are still things to negotiate and to navigate and being able to know what my highest priorities are and really put my hundred percents in those baskets and to be able to let go of the. Some other things that it's like, okay, maybe that didn't quite go the way I wanted it to, or that schedule didn't pan out exactly the way that my family would have appreciated it, but I got to really kind of. Yeah. Put my. Put my stamp on these other aspects that. That are much more important to me. And so I think just being able to.

Kenna Millea [00:47:22]:
Yeah. I don't know. Being able to accept that when you are receiving the gift of being able to celebrate with others, it's not gonna 100% go your way. It's not gonna 100% look the way you expected. Even though you guys have done Christmas many times together before, you know, what have you. Because families are dynamic, because people are dynamic. It's ever changing.

Pat Millea [00:47:42]:
Yep. And even I would say over time, the way that a holiday looks, especially with something like Thanksgiving or Christmas, is going to have to change. You know, my parents are young and they are healthy and they are strong. Right. But even this year, for example, they're coming back from Rome from a trip where they got to go visit Pope Leo, God bless him and them, they have. They're coming to Minnesota for our daughter's Confirmation. Oh, that's going to be my high in a few weeks. They're coming for her confirmation really soon, so they just don't have much time to prepare for Thanksgiving this year.

Pat Millea [00:48:15]:
So we're helping out by chipping in a little bit more on the food prep than we normally do. But there will come a time in 10 or 20 or 30 years where they just don't have the physical ability to prepare and host the way that they used to. So we adult siblings are gonna have to figure out a way to make Thanksgiving and Christmas look different, but still beautiful and beautiful in a different way. And beautiful because we're able to step up in different ways and serve our parents the ways that they've served us for decades now. You know, it's going to change, but it definitely does not mean it's going to get worse.

Kenna Millea [00:48:52]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think the. The communication around that and this openness to. I'm not going to get a hundred percent of what I'm looking for, but can there be key elements that are meaningful to me, that matter to me? So that's my roundup of the particulars. Are there things that I miss? Things that you.

Pat Millea [00:49:10]:
I don't think so. No. I think that's spectacular. Yeah. Yeah. And that covers, I think, all the other ones, too, like the Memorial Days of the world. You know, we talked about praying at the cemetery. We do that again at All Souls Day as well, with our family.

Pat Millea [00:49:23]:
Just doing something meaningful with our family to really embrace and not let this opportunity for the beauty of the holiday pass us by and to live it out in a way that's consistent with our values. Yeah, it's great.

Kenna Millea [00:49:35]:
That is the drum we continue to beat.

Pat Millea [00:49:37]:
Yeah, girl.

Kenna Millea [00:49:40]:
Do you have a challenge by choice for us? I think you are on deck for the challenge.

Pat Millea [00:49:44]:
You better believe it.

Kenna Millea [00:49:44]:
Should I. Should I stall?

Pat Millea [00:49:46]:
No, I got it. We're fine. No. My challenge by choice. So here's the deal. The beauty of podcasts. You could be listening to this right before Thanksgiving, 2025, like it's released, or you could be listening to it right before. What's a weird one? Flag Day, 2032 in the middle of June.

Pat Millea [00:50:06]:
You know, you could be listening to it any time of the year. My challenge by choice is to look at the next significant holiday for your family, the next significant celebration, Somebody's birthday, a wedding anniversary, an upcoming holiday that is in your family or in the church, and to consider, what are the ways that I can live out my values while celebrating this holiday and what conversations Do I need to have with the people I care about so that we can have the best chance at a holiday that is joyful and loving and peaceful and where we're able to work together to create an experience where we can all celebrate? I'm not going to get everything I want. You're not going to get everything you want. But together we can participate in this just beautiful celebration that really does honor not just to the holiday, but it does honor and glory to the people involved and to the God who gave us the chance to celebrate like this in the first place.

Kenna Millea [00:51:06]:
So, yeah, it's good. I like it.

Pat Millea [00:51:07]:
What am I looking forward to? How can I be realistic and how can I talk about that with the people I love?

Kenna Millea [00:51:13]:
Good news for us. We have several things coming up where we can practice this.

Pat Millea [00:51:17]:
So many things.

Kenna Millea [00:51:19]:
Shall we pray?

Pat Millea [00:51:20]:
I'm gonna manage my expectations someday. It's gonna be great.

Kenna Millea [00:51:22]:
All right, Clark, should we pray?

Pat Millea [00:51:24]:
Do you mind praying? Thank you, my love.

Kenna Millea [00:51:25]:
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord of life, we invite you in. We invite you to. Yeah. To captivate our hearts, to reign over our lives and to be the center of our world, the center of our thoughts, the center of our plans and our dreams. We want you in all of it. Lord, we thank you for the holy days and the holidays that give us a chance to reflect on some of the meaningful truths of our faith, the meaningful realities of our human experience. Thank you for placing those pauses on our path so that we can be more reflective, that we can be more thankful, so that we can be more intentional.

Kenna Millea [00:52:26]:
Give us the grace as we go into whatever our next celebration is with. Yeah. Greater openness to how we can meet others and their needs for that celebration and how we can be more transparent and more thoughtful in sharing what it is that we are looking for. All in support of our connection to one another. And ultimately, for your glory, we ask this in your holy name, Lord. Amen.

Pat Millea [00:52:57]:
Amen.

Kenna Millea [00:52:58]:
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pat Millea [00:53:01]:
Amen. Looking forward to Ash Wednesday already. It's right around the corner. Once you get past the annoying ones like Thanksgiving and Christmas, you can finally get to Ash Wednesday, right? Oh, golly. Friends, here's what this is. Not your challenge by choice, but I would love to hear what your favorite holiday is or your most ridiculous holiday story from some celebration. And you can do that a host of ways. You can send us a message on Instagram @thisiswholelifepodcast.

Pat Millea [00:53:29]:
You could go to thiswholelifepodcast.com and you can send us a message that we'll receive. You could send us a text. There's a number at the bottom of the episode description here and whatever you're listening on where you can send us a text message with your response. But let me know what's on your mind. It'd be great to hear what you're up to and what funny memories you've got. As always, friends, we are praying for you and your family. Please pray for us and our family in the midst of all the holidays coming up and get out there and celebrate in a way that works for you. God bless you, friends.

Kenna Millea [00:54:01]:
You're not alone. You're not alone. This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center for Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com. In my lack of preparation, Ghost of.

Pat Millea [00:54:28]:
Christmas present, you are Christmas past. Actually, he was the really jolly, like the fat and happy one. Yeah.