S2 Intro: Making winter special

Welcome to Series 2 of the podcast! This quick intro tells you what goodness I have in store for you over the coming weeks, with new episodes every Wednesday throughout November and December. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of them!

Transcript

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Christmas can be a very special time, but it can also be a very stressful time. Given everything that has been going on, who knows what will unfold this winter? What if, for once, we just relaxed and gave ourselves permission to focus on what really matters. Welcome to The Calm Christmas Podcast with me Beth Kempton, sent out to you from the kitchen table of my home, an old stone cottage here in rural Devon, in South West England. Wind is whipping around the chimney, and rain is on its way, so I'm going to pop the kettle on, and let's settle in for a cosy chat. Welcome, my friend, I'm so glad you're here. It was such a joy to hear from so many of you last year about how The Calm Christmas Podcast and my book of the same name inspired you to have a completely different kind of Christmas, one that you really treasured. Reading your words inspired me to bring the podcast back for a second series, this time focusing on creating a special season for less: less money, less pressure, less waste, and less stress, which I hope is going to lead to more joy, more memories, and perhaps even a little more festive magic. I have so much goodness in store for you and I hope we can make this year very special too. We're going to be coming to you weekly throughout November and December and I hope this podcast will be a quiet retreat from the festive noise. I'm going to be offering tips and ideas for honouring this special season without sacrificing your wellbeing, and I hope they really resonate and that you'll try them out and that they will all help you to take good care of yourself this winter. Inspired by my book Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year: A Little Book of Festive Joy, I've created this podcast as a way to ground ourselves as the season rushes towards us. It is based in the belief that there is no single way to approach Christmas, and also that taking good care of ourselves throughout the season is good for the body and mind and sets us up to bring new dreams to life in the new year. I do want to give you a gentle word of warning though. This podcast may well inspire you to ditch half your plans, half the things you normally do because you normally do them, and open up space for spontaneity. It will probably make you question convention and inherited tradition in order to shape a celebration that recognises what you really need and treasure most. Here in the podcast, I'm going to be introducing you to some snippets of gorgeous winter writing and some beautiful poems to carry us through the season. If you want to explore the books that I'm quoting from further, you'll always be able to find the links to those books in the show notes. I really do hope that you get yourself a couple of those books for cosy reading, as winter draws in. There will also be recipes nature notes, crafting ideas, tips to help you get ahead for Christmas, and some general advice to help you stay well in the darkest, coldest, wettest months of the year. Of course, those of you on the other side of the planet are experiencing a very different kind of Christmas weather and climate to us as you do every year. But you are very welcome here too. And I hope you enjoy a little peek into what it's like to have a northern hemisphere Christmas. Certainly what it's like in England, where I live, There are going to be fireside stories and talk of traditions and some journal prompts to inspire you to write your way through the winter. This isn't a religious podcast, it honours the truth that Christmas means all sorts of things to different people. It's about helping you to make the most of the season, whatever you believe, and inspiring you to choose whatever kind of holiday season you want and need this year. Personally, I absolutely love Christmas. And I hope you get a sense of that through the series. But I also know that Christmas is about so much more than the big day. To me Christmas is a season. It's a time of light and shadow, joy and sadness, gathering and aloneness. It was this that inspired me to write my book Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year, which in turn inspired this podcast and I hope that you find our conversations over the weeks ahead, really bring to life some of the magic of Christmas, while giving you the chance to reflect on what it means to you and what you really want to do with it this year. I hope you'll join me every week in the coming weeks to bring a little Christmas calm and festive joy to your corner of the world. So coming up in November, we have five inspiring episodes. One is all about less expectation and more intention. That's the first episode, which is available now. The second one is less manic, more magic coming up next week. And then we have less stress, more joy, less spending more thought, and less bought more homemade, coming later in the month. So lots of gorgeous ideas about crafting and wrapping and doing things in a very special way without breaking the bank or driving yourself crazy. And then in December, we have four more episodes to take us through Advent and towards the New Year. Their themes are less pressure, more ease. Sounds good, right? less noise more quiet. Can't wait for that one. And then just before Christmas, less comparison, more celebration. And for our final episode, which will come to you in the week between Christmas and New Year. We have less doing more dreaming. I hope that you will subscribe and tune in for all of them. My intention is to offer a podcast that helps us find some serenity in the chaos, light in the dark, and joy in all the small moments that are going to reveal themselves like the doors of an advent calendar opening over the coming weeks. I'd love to hear about your own preparations and celebrations, about your special moments and the things that resonate most. You can find me on Instagram where you'll get a peek into my own perfectly imperfect Christmas preparations. And I'm@BethKempton on Instagram. So do come and say hello. And so that's it for just this brief introduction to the podcast. I hope you'll go over and listen to the first episode which is waiting for you now. Remember to subscribe. And my

wish for you is this: 7:06

May this podcast be atlantan guiding us through the darkness of winter, back to the enchantment of an authentic and meaningful holiday season. There are logs on the fire and tea in the pot, and fresh ginger cake straight out of the oven. Get yourself comfy and let's begin.