Welcome to the Beautiful View Podcast, where we encourage you to look for opportunities in your life to see a beautiful view. I'm Candy. 

And I'm Paul. Today's topic for the episode is reclaiming contentment. 

Yes, for many people, the holiday season can make contentment harder to hold on to. Today, we're going to discuss some ways we can reclaim contentment by focusing on meaning over materialism, gratitude over gifts, presence over perfection, and faith over frenzy. 

Okay, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful view. 

Before we jump into today's episode, let's catch everyone up on what we've been up to the last couple of. 

Weeks. Yep. So Christmas started for us with the Christmas train coming through town. 

Yes, that was fun. 

It was fun, yeah. 

So if you're not familiar with what that is, it's basically a train that comes through. It's all lit up with Christmas lights. Yes. And There's a part that drops down on one of the train cars and it turns into a stage. 

And they have a band and they have a collection of food that goes to local food banks. And Santa is there. And so the first time we saw the train was two years ago. 

It comes through, it stops every two years. 

It was at night time then, so it was really cool because every car on the train has all the Christmas lights on it and everything. 

Yeah, that was super cool. It was dark outside. This time it was in the middle of the day. It was like at 12.45. But It was kind of a. 

It was cool. 

Overcast kind of cloudy kind of, yeah. So it was great. It was fun. All the kids, they pulled all the kids out of school for the afternoon. 

Which they were excited about. 

They got to see Santa and sing songs. 

And not be in school. 

And not be in school. So I would have been excited too. 

And we had Thanksgiving at our house, which was very special. 

We had our friends, Joe and Ann joined us for lunch and it was a lovely meal. Everything turned out. 

Delicious. Everything was great. We all shared in cooking the different dishes. And so it was, and we had a nice big turkey, which apparently we needed. 

Yeah, we made a pretty good hand at it. 

Yeah, So how many pounds was it? 

22, I think. 

22 pound turkey. That's a big bird. 

Yeah, it was a big bird. Not the biggest one I've ever cooked, but it was a big bird. 

And it turned out really good. So, and then, Over the last, what, seven, 8 days, we have had a total of 18 inches of snow that has fallen here in two snowstorms. Like the first one, I measured it at 12 inches outside here. 12 inches of snow in one night. And then as if that wasn't enough, What was it, Saturday night? 

Yeah, we got hit with another 5, 6 inches. 

Six inches. 

Something like that. 

So yeah, so we have been doing a lot of shoveling. 

A lot of shoveling. 

But it's beautiful outside. Like it's really pretty. 

We literally are walking in a winter wonderland. 

It is fantastic. And I mean, I mean, it's going to be a white Christmas this year for sure. It's not going anywhere. It's not going anywhere soon. 

So while we were snowed in, We decorated, got all the Christmas stuff down and put the tree up and got everything. We decked our halls. I made, we have four big spruce trees outside of our house. 

Big spruce trees. 

And there were a couple of limbs that were kind of low hanging and we knew they were going to be extra heavy when they were covered to be cut back. So Paul cut them back and then I took some of the branches off of those and I made some little, well, this little thing on the front of our table, just kind of a little. 

Yeah. 

I made a garland that kind of goes over the. 

Which looks great. 

Entry to the kitchen and just a few other little things, a wreath and just having the little sprigs around that smells good. 

Anyway, that's just fun. The Christmas tractor goes around town and they've got like a little trailer on the back that's all covered in and got heaters and stuff. And so you can book your ride on the Christmas tractor and take a tour around the town and see all the lights. 

So as soon as we hear the tractor, we run out and make sure all the porch lights are on. 

We wave as they come by. 

Wave at everybody. So if you ride the Christmas tractor in Bellevue, make sure you wave at us. 

Please wave. And you've been baking. 

I have been baking a lot. And Emily? 

Yeah. 

Emily and I both have. We made cookies for the Friends of the Library Cookie Walk that happened last Friday. I've been baking little apple cakes for staff at the brewery and just All kinds of little things. 

Kitchen's been a busy place. 

It has been a busy place. Made lots and lots of cookies and we've eaten lots and lots of cookies. 

Oh yeah. And you took some of those cookies last night to the brewery. 

Yeah. 

For our staff Christmas party. 

Yeah, that was a good time. It was a wonderful time. So we had a great turnout and it was just a really sweet time. I just love those people. 

Yeah, and they love you too. 

I know. 

Yeah. 

Okay, so today we're diving into a topic that feels especially relevant this time of year. contentment. 

Because let's be honest, for many people, the holiday season can make contentment feel a little harder to hold on to. There's busyness, expectations, comparison. Definitely some stress and the pressure to create that perfect holiday moment. 

Exactly. And everywhere we look, we're being told what we need to buy, what we need to achieve, and what we should be doing. It's so easy for materialism to kind of take center stage this time of year, even when we don't want it to. 

So as we mentioned before, today we want to talk about how we can reclaim that contentment in a really intentional way. How we can refocus on meaning over materialism, gratitude over gifts, presence over perfection, and faith over frenzy. 

Let's start with talking about meaning over materialism. 

Okay. 

During the holidays, it's so easy to get caught up in the more mindset, more gifts, more decorations, more events, more spending, more of everything, more. 

That pressure is definitely there, but I know that you have implemented a few things over the years to combat this in our family. Things that really work. And I think it'd be really helpful to share. So maybe we could go through them together. 

Yeah, of course. So back when we were RVing, we started with the kids because we didn't have room for a bunch of gifts. So We started the for gift rule for each person. So what that is, something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. And that really cut down on our overspending or any overspending. Right, The past couple of years, I've started using, we still do the for gift thing every year, but now I've found an app called Gift List. 

Okay. 

And Basically, how it works is you put in everyone that you're buying gifts for. 

All right. 

And I know I've told you about this before, but I don't think you were listening the last time. 

I was half listening. This is sort of vaguely familiar. 

I'm going to re-explain it. Okay. 

That's good for me. 

Yeah. So you put in everybody that you're buying gifts for. 

Okay. 

You can put things down that you, ideas. So it has an ideas section and it's ideas for gifts. You can mark it as a gift or as a stocking stuffer. 

Oh, okay. 

For each person. So you put in the price, it has a spot for a website if it's off of a certain website. Anyway, and that way you can kind of compile your budget, your Christmas budget. And then once you purchase something off of that, you can mark it as purchased, you can mark it as received, and then you mark it as wrapped. So you can follow through That way that saves you from buying a bunch of stocking stuffers and sticking them in a drawer to hide them and then forgetting about them until next year or the next year or the next year or whatever. It just kind of streamlines everything and it kind of helps me stay on track with spending and that kind of stuff. 

So let me see if I got this right. So once you compile everything, those results go straight to the North Pole to Santa's iPhone. 

No, I don't think, well, maybe it works that way. 

Maybe. so. I don't know. 

Might be a little mystery there. 

Okay. 

Anyway. 

All of that is great, but Christmas isn't all about the gifts, is it? 

Of course not. The truth is, meaning shows up often in the simplest of things. A quiet moment, a conversation, a prayer, a memory, a tradition. 

One of the simple things that has some meaning for me is when we put the Christmas lights on the roof outside the house here every year. And the story behind that is that really these Christmas lights shouldn't be working. So we left Odessa, Texas and our house in Odessa, Texas in 2014, 15, 15, 2015. And we had these lights on our house there, correct? 

Yeah, I guess it would have been Christmas of 2014 was the last time they were on our house there. 

And we had them up on the house. 93. so we had them all the way around the outside of the roof of the house. And then we boxed them up, put them in storage, and then we decided we were going to put them in our RV because there was just like moments where we could like hang them up outside the RV. 

Yeah, just kind of, yeah, for extra light or to be festive or whatever. 

Yeah, it made for a really fun like little camp area outside. I mean, I remember one time We were camping with other families right on the side of the Grand Canyon in the National Forest there. And we had them strung through all the trees all the way around. 

We did. And there was no electricity. We had them hooked up to our generator. We were powering them with our generator. 

Which is, you know, I mean, it but it looked good. 

Maybe a little over the top. 

Yeah, but it looked good. Yeah, it was cool. So anyway, we have a total of like maybe five of these strands. And so outside our house here, when you just do the front of the house, we use 4 strands. And so what I've been doing is each and every year, I put them up, I figure out which lamps are burned out, and I use the 5th strand to provide the burned out lamps for the ones we have out here. 

And I'm pretty sure they're like the glass. 

Incandescent, no LEDs. 

I'm pretty sure that you probably can't even buy that kind anymore. 

Like we switch them on every. night and I'm pretty sure like all the lights in town dim as they go on. But so these things have been hanging around. around now for literally hanging around now for like 11, 12 years and they're still going strong. Probably, but I mean, that's making the most of something that we had and just the, it gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction in my heart to see these lights still lighting up the streets so many years later. 

It's the simple things, isn't it? 

It's the simple things in life, yes. 

Oh goodness. So contentment grows when we shift focus from what we don't have to what truly matters. 

Yes. 

I was just telling some friends the other day about a year that we just had a really ridiculously difficult time financially that year. So we had to, it came to Christmas time. We didn't have money. We barely had groceries. We didn't have money. So gifts were pretty much out. So I was like, okay, how are we going to do this? How are we going to save Christmas? So I had an idea and I proposed it to the family. that year that we embraced the situation and have an old-fashioned Christmas where everybody hand makes their gifts. We have some creative people in our house. So everyone was to make homemade gifts. We made homemade decorations, all of that. Do you remember that year? 

Yes, I do. We all made the gifts for each other with the things that we already had. So it felt like there was more thought involved, more effort involved. And you and Emily teamed up and made us all new stockings for Christmas. 

We did. Yeah. I actually, I carried my sewing machine with me in the RV. 

Which was essential. 

So we used it a lot. But so I sewed us new stockings. I had some Christmas fabric and so, and then she crocheted the little cuff part on the top. So it was a super joint effort and they turned out so cute. 

They are cute. 

So we still use them actually. We do. It's just, yeah, because it's kind of a memory of that. and it was sweet. That's probably the most fun and special Christmas we've had, I would say. 

Yeah, it was. It was very meaningful. 

It's way up there on the top of the list. 

So one of the main things that switched for us when we went on the road is that we became self-employed. And if you're self-employed, you know what the deal is. There's no Christmas bonuses. In fact, Christmas has always been our slowest time of the year, every single year, since we started being self-employed. 

Yeah. 

But that's, so that's created the need for us to slim down our budgets. But I think it's put us in a really great position to gain a better perspective of the season. 

Definitely. I think it is helpful to ask ourselves, what actually makes this season meaningful for me? And then invest our time and hearts there, not in the pressures of keeping up with everyone else. 

Sure. The next thing we're going to talk about is gratitude over gifts. Gift giving is great. It's fun. It's thoughtful. 

Of course. 

But it's not the source of lasting joy. 

For sure. Gratitude makes us slow down and brings us back to what we already have. It grounds us and it levels out the noise all around us. 

Taking a moment each day to name one thing that you're grateful for, a relationship, a blessing, a provision, or something God has done can shift our whole perspective. 

For sure. Gratitude doesn't ignore the hard things. It paints them in a different light. 

Yes, it reminds us that even in the middle of chaos or stress. 

Or even when we're covered in snow. 

18 inches of snow, there's still goodness to see. 

This next one really hits home for me. Presence. over perfection. 

Okay. 

A lot of stress comes from trying to create a flawless holiday season. I don't know anyone who's guilty of that. 

Do you? absolutely. Perfect gatherings, perfect homes, perfect photos. It can be exhausting just to think about it. takes a lot of effort to pull off that kind of perfection. And the truth is, nothing is ever perfect. And sometimes the unexpected, unplanned, and spontaneous can make for some of our favorite moments. 

Which in retrospect, some of those favorite moments may actually be perfect. 

Absolutely. Meant to be. 

Meant to be. I know in my heart, my loved ones don't need perfection from me, though. They need us. Our attention, our laughter, our conversations, our presence. And as you said, those imperfect moments are often the ones that we remember the most. 

Yes. 

I have to remind myself of this regularly, especially this time of year. 

We all have things to work on. Contentment grows when we let go of perfection and show up as we truly are, not as Instagram says we should be. 

And last but not least, faith over frenzy. It's so easy for the season to speed up until we forget what it's actually all about. 

Faith helps us slow down. It re-centers us on Jesus, on hope, and on peace. When we focus on our faith, the frenzy of the season loses its grip. 

Yeah, contentment is really rooted in trusting God, trusting that He's enough, that He provides, and that we don't have to live in constant striving. 

A life of faith allows us to let go of how we think things should be and adopt an appreciation for the way things actually are. Being able to let go is not an act of giving up, but a decision that is rooted in a carefully cultivated life of deep understanding and obedience. This is not easy, but it's so worth it. 

So whether you are feeling overwhelmed or longing for more peace this season, we hope these reminders help you reclaim contentment. The kind that comes from knowing why we celebrate Christmas in the 1st place. The birth of Jesus, our promised Savior. 

Philippians 4, verses 11 through 12 reminds us that contentment isn't rooted in circumstances. It's something we learn as we trust Christ. Paul says, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. And Christmas reminds us why we can be content. because Jesus came into our broken world to bring hope, joy, and salvation. 

And Hebrews 13, 5 echoes the heart of Christmas. Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. 

Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. The baby born in Bethlehem is the one who brings us lasting peace and the presence of God that never leaves. True contentment flows from that truth. 

May you be filled with contentment this Christmas season. May the Lord meet you right where you are, whether you're weary, hopeful, or just doing your best. May the small, sweet moments hold you close. Quiet prayers, twinkling lights, the reminder that Jesus came to be with us. May this season lead you toward meaning over materialism, gratitude over gifts, presence over perfection, faith over frenzy, and the unfailing love of Christ above everything else, because His birth gives us a hope far greater than anything else the season can offer. 

We pray that you experience moments of real joy, deep peace, and contentment as we remember the hope born in Bethlehem, our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

And that is today's beautiful view. 

Yes. 

Thank you for joining us today. Our hope is always to inspire and encourage our listeners. So we hope this episode helped you think about what real contentment can look like in your life. Just imagine how different this season could feel if we all just slowed down a bit, let go of the pressure to have everything perfect, and choose peace over the frenzy. Each of us can set that tone, and when we do, we make it easier for the people around us to find contentment too. 

Yes. If you like what we do here at the Beautiful View Podcast, you can show your appreciation by becoming a supporting member for only $5 a month. We'll send you a members-only Beautiful View Podcast sticker and a regular encouraging newsletter to your inbox. Your support helps cover our production costs. The link to sign up is in our show notes. 

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And this will be our last episode of 2025. 

Where has this year gone? 

Thank you for joining us along the way this year. 

Yes, we are going to take a few weeks off and we'll be back in the new year to reveal our 2026 word of the year and talk about how our word of the year for 2025, abide, kind of played out over the course of the year. 

Yeah, we have that word abide just in our little coffee bar there. So I was looking at it just this morning and wondering what next year holds. 

Yeah. 

We always look forward to finding out what our new word of the year is. And I can't believe, as you said, that this year is already like pretty much gone. 

I know. 

It's gone by so quickly and the year 2026 doesn't sound like a real year. Like it sounds like something on Back to the Future. 

Yeah, it sounds like something in the future. 

It's weird. 

Yeah, I guess it is in the future, but it sounds like it should be further in the future. 

Much further in the future. Anyway. 

Thank you once again for joining us today. We hope you have a great day and remember to always keep an eye open for opportunities in life to see a beautiful view. Have a very Merry Christmas and a joy-filled New Year. 

Merry Christmas.