I LOVE Christmas! I love the music, the bright colors, being with friends and family, giving to others, annual festive traditions, reliving childhood memories, reliving the magic every year through my son's eyes, and of course most importantly, reflecting on the birth of Jesus Christ and what Mary endured to bring our Savior into this world.
But Christmas is a bipolar holiday for me because I also struggle with it and have for many years. So, how can we struggle with a holiday based on love, kindness, fun, and doing for others? For those of us who do, we have our reasons. For those who may be torn like I am, I want you to know I understand how difficult it can be, and let you know I see and care about you.
This Christmas came upon us quickly and at first, I dreaded it. But I was determined not to let circumstances beyond my control get the best of me. Do you know why? Because I chose not to let it, which can be easier said than done.
Our holiday traditions changed starting with Thanksgiving. It was different than every other year, and it was one of my favorites to date! Thanksgiving threw many of us off by being one of the last few days of November. I had a hard time getting a start on my decorating and shopping. Third-world problems, right?! To be honest, it had nothing to do with the date on the calendar but more that the Grinch or Scrooge were trying to squeeze their way in. Then I realized I needed some joy. Our family decided to try something new. We love orange sticks, so we bought several boxes, and I had the pleasure of watching my son choose these past few weeks who he was going to give them to. It brought me great joy to witness the happiness in the unsuspecting receiver (servers at restaurants, older people in parking lots, people at the store). Then, I had a proud mom moment when my son came home with an angel list off an angel tree at the library. It was fun taking him shopping to buy gifts to donate. I’m constantly reinforcing that this season is for giving and this year he did not disappoint.
Still, Scrinch tried to find me and when he did, I found myself taking time to slow down, to shift my thinking. I grabbed hold of his hand and made him stop with me during my walks through the mall to listen to Christmas performances. He tried to hate it, but I forced him to enjoy it with me.
I sought out managers at the movies, in stores, and in restaurants to tell them I noticed how hard their employees were working and that they were doing a good job. I even hinted that they deserved a Christmas bonus. I smiled at those who I could tell were having a bad day and tried to compliment them in some way. "You have a great smile!" or "I love your shirt!' or "You have great hair!" goes a long way.
We changed up our traditions and while I cherish my old ones, these new ones just may be better. Change, while hard, can be good. A lesson we can learn simply from changing our underwear every day.
So why share this with you? For those of us who are reading this who struggle like I do, I wanted to share there are ways to bring in some cheer when you don’t necessarily feel like being cheerful. It was amazing how these small things turned my holiday spirit around. This year started as being my hardest and turned out to be one of my favorites.
As we go into the new year this is an area I’m going to try to focus on. Instead of letting people or circumstances try to steal my joy, I’m going to work on being more aware and not allowing these thieves to affect me or my day. I’m going to focus on the lesson to be learned in everything and protecting my peace. To be honest, I'm an Aquarius so I tend to overanalyze things which means this is probably going to be hard for me, but I’ll force myself to think back on how those smiles and compliments made others feel and I'm pretty sure everything will work out.
Peace and Love to all! From me and my new BFF Scrinch.
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