By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

My gift list this year is focused on something we all need this difficult year of 2020: self-care. Each of the books, products and shops below are ones that I have used that brightened my mood, helped me relax, or even helped me lift my eyes upwards to the source of all joy and comfort. Many of these items are created or sold by independently owned small businesses, so I feel even better spending my money there!

Personal care

The only thing that calms me more than a hot shower is a hot shower using one of these gorgeously created and scented soaps by Harvest Soap Co. My friend Carol started sharing photos of the soaps she was making before she opened up her shop, and every photo made me hungry – they look like cake, and some of them smell like it, too! Ever since my first order, I cannot go back to any other kind of soap. They are made of natural, skin-loving ingredients, with no harsh detergents, and best of all, they smell and feel amazing. For the holidays, there are several landscape soaps that are almost too pretty to use. Buy some for yourself and your friends.

Until December 15, use MERRY25 to get 25% off your order: https://www.harvestsoapco.com/.

At my desk where I work from home, I keep a spray bottle of rose water. It helps me reset when I feel stuck and refreshes me right before a Zoom meeting. A little more on my hair tames fly-aways in time for the online classes I teach. I buy my rose water from Naturally Yours Beauty, where I also now buy all my hair care for myself and my daughter. Another small business owned by one of my friends, LaTonya hand-makes all her products and makes sure they are the best quality with no harmful ingredients.

You can buy the rose water and her other products here (there’s a sale going on right now): https://www.etsy.com/shop/NaturallyYoursBeauty. Follow LaTonya on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/naturallyyours_beauty/

Crafts and Hobbies

I know so many people who have taken up all sorts of hobbies during quarantine and lock down, or spent more time on hobbies they already have, from gardening to bread baking to knitting and crafting. Before I developed carpal tunnel syndrome, my go-to hobby to relax (besides reading, of course) was crochet. Now that it’s become more difficult, my new hand-crafted hobby is using planner stickers. My gateway planner stickers were these Coptic calendar planner stickers that I’ve been using to mark the upcoming year’s fasts and feasts in the Coptic Orthodox Church and help me prepare and plan around them. We the Copts has also just released a beautiful Coptic icon paint by number kit. It’s a complete set that’s best for teenagers and adults that leads to the painting of Christ the Good Shepherd in the Coptic icon style—another great way to focus attention on Christ rather than on our anxieties. Want to keep the kids busy while you work on your painting?Pick up this set of three Nativity scene watercolor canvases.

Purchase the Christ the Good Shepherd paint by number icon here, and the 2021 calendar stickers here. Check out her small business gift list as well here.

Books

No gift list from me would be complete without a list of books! This is a list that will soothe the soul.

Darkness is as Light from Park End Books, edited by Summer Kinard, is a new devotional in every sense of the word. This collection of stories, poetry and meditation on Scripture by women from various Christian traditions who aren’t afraid to talk about the hard things. The stories and meditations are not meant to “feel good” but to reveal the goodness of the Lord even in the depths of despair, even in the darkness. From gossip to child abuse to living with disability to living with infertility, each of the selections points to Christ in our midst even in the darkest hour. I’m honored to have a selection I wrote included among them!

Here is a taste from a selection by Stasia Braswell:

Free will is more frightening than it ever has been. Everything was easier when I believed that God was a skilled puppeteer, ordaining all my choices. Fear freezes me to the spot, like a rabbit crouched in the underbrush. Life altering decisions swirl around me in a kaleidoscope of possibilities. This new kind of love is terrifying; I am possessed by anxiety. What if all my choices are the wrong ones?

I bless my body with the sign of the cross and dare to hope that my words may pierce the Theotokos’ heart. Make my path like the doe’s. Steady me through this rocky ravine, and though I am high and the way is treacherous, let me pass unharmed. I am called to love the Lord, even in my insufficiency and fear, and trust that He will make my feet like the hind’s.

Purchase Darkness is as Light from Bookshop here and receive its lowest price plus free shipping through November 30^th. It is also available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Seven Holy Women: Conversations with Saints and Friends from Ancient Faith Publishing. Read this wonderful book on your own, or use it for a book club or a retreat. It’s not just a collection of stories of some lesser known women saints, but it’s a conversation, a way of getting to know each one beyond her story. Each section is written by a different author. It starts with a scene from that saint’s life, imagined from her perspective, a summary of her story, a personal reflection on that story, ideas for considering that saint’s life in your own life, and some questions to journal about or discuss in a group.

I never knew St. Morwenna until I read her story in this book. Her daily diligence, one rock at a time, to build a church, inspires me. I think about that every time I feel overwhelmed by large writing projects I’m working on that require so much research. I think about that every time I must make a difficult parenting decision, one my kids will hate me for now but will build their character later. But I think about St. Morwenna, one rock at a time, and consider how dangerous it was for her to carry that one rock up that English cliff every single day, and ask her for her prayers:

You lift the stone up from the path and settle it like a crown on your head. You step forward, one hand guarding the stone, one hand guiding your journey up the dangerous, familiar path. When you reach the top, you add the stone to the pile and step back. The small pile has become a large pile, almost a mountain, almost a cathedral.”

from the section on St. Morwenna by Laura Jansson.

Purchase Seven Holy Women from Ancient Faith Publishing here, or Amazon here.

Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church by Phoebe Farag Mikhail from Paraclete Press. I can’t think of a time when we are in more need of the ancient practices of the church to help us receive the true joy that God wants to give us. We have seen so much death, anger, division, and pain this past year, as if truly the world around us conspires to steal our joy. In our struggle not to submit to spiritual despair, the answer lies in the spiritual disciplines – praying the hours, visiting the sick, repentance, thanksgiving, hospitality, arrow prayers, singing praises to God—all of these reorient us to receive the joy God wants to give us, and serve as weapons against the joy thieves, within and without, that try to steal them. Read my book to learn more about how each of these practices do so. There is no better time.

The world offers us connection, but only the superficial kind when we surround ourselves with those who make us comfortable rather than reaching out to do what is uncomfortable. It offers us longer life in the form of new medications, fad diets, and fitness clubs, but none of those can offer us eternal life. It offers us new cars, new gadgets, more possessions, more to consume when we tire of what we have already consumed—possessions we cannot take with us to eternity that weigh us down here on earth. It feeds our passions, our “joy thieves,” rather than helping us master them. It offers us “inner peace” through spiritual practices divorced from the Spirit, but it doesn’t give us true peace. We will face tribulation when we fight off these imitations, when we refuse to succumb and instead, with Christ, we overcome.

– Phoebe Farag Mikhail, Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church.

Purchase Putting Joy into Practice from Bookshop here and get free shipping through November 30^th, from Paraclete Press here for bulk discounts, from Amazon here, and from wherever books are sold.

Coming soon, a children’s book gift list! Subscribe to my email newsletter and be the first to find out.

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