Gratitude
For all
I have learned,
I am thankful.
For all I have met
And all that I have,
I am thankful.
For where
I am now
And who
I am today,
I am thankful,
I am thankful,
I am thankful.
Tonight
I sleep tight,
Goodnight.
Ahhhh December, December!
How best to describe it?
Let me try.
So every day of the year has at least 2 hours of large intensity.
1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening.
It is that moment where I am tired and yet EVERYONE in my household has an urgent, noisy, need at the same time.
It is a crescendo of “day”, and in that very, very moment - the dog will make a piercing bark for some doggie necessity and my brain will start overwhelmingly screaming. That moment happens every day for a relatively short period of time and that, well that feeling for me is the month of DECEMBER.
December is the month where all the sensible creatures on the planet take the time to retire, rest, replenish and restore. Whereas we decide, that the dark of winter is the perfect time to PPPPPAAAAARRRRRRTTTTTYYYYY the whole month long. The calendar is brimmed with events, needs and expectations. We hear the shrills of “making memories” and the drum beat of “tradition, tradition.” I look at us all, standing in this thing and see forced smiles with scary eyes. “‘Tis the season,” I hear myself say....””all the things” my brain repeats “all-the-things.”
And each year I promise myself that this year, this year will be different. This year I will do the holidays the sensible way, I will be strong with the word “no” and “not this year”. I will recreate that feeling of simple contentment and bliss for the season that I used to have as a child. Yet the feelings of stress rise, the plans fall out of my control and I start to get sucked into the hustle, I start to feel bad that I’m not doing “all the things”, that I am lacking in some way and end up feeling even more stressed and fraught. “Happy Holidays.”
Glug, glug Baileys.
Phew…sorry, I lost myself a bit there didn’t I.
Should I start again?
As lovely and twinkly as this time of year is – it is stressful.
There is no escaping or denying this, in fact the more we try to pretend that this is fun, fun, fun the worse we feel not better. That said – we do not need to run to our covers just yet – it is going to be ok! We are going to get through this, I promise. Survival at best yes, but maybe, just maybe I could squeeze the odd genuine smile in there too.
How Caz, I hear you cry? Ok, stick with me – because this might sound a little naff, but I have found it really works. It is a game I play called mini-miracles. Gratitude has become an overplayed word these days…so I have come up with a simpler version that you can play each day, your own little secret game. Everyday is filled with a mixed bag of stuff. Stuff will go right, stuff will go wrong, stuff will go REALLY right and stuff will go UTTERLY wrong…add to that a mixed bag of moods too …we will want to kiss people somedays and kick people in the neck the next. I don’t think this is a personality – it is just being human – especially being human in December.
As each day is filled with this cocktail of things, it is also dotted with what I am starting to call my mini-miracles of the day…my mini-miracles that before I would not have even noticed, but this month I am paying particular attention to.
Today went something like this:
Coffee – mini-miracle
Kids being nice to eachother – mini-miracle
Good socks in drawer washed – mini-miracle
Walk with friend – mini-miracle
Birds in hedgerow – mini-miracle
Twinkly Christmas Lights – mini-miracle
Made a sale – mini-miracle
Joke that make me laugh – mini-miracle
It doesn’t sound too revolutionary does it? In fact in the space of 12 hours this was probably about 60 mins all put together – but it was 8 times I told my brain “mini-miracle” and mini-miracle is a pretty great expression to surround my day with. It is a much better expression than all the other exclamations my mind says as I deal with daily nonsense and the more I play this game, the more mini-miracles I want to see. I start to see mini-miracles all over the place and I even want to give other people mini-miracles in their day even though they aren’t playing my game. SO I let that person in at the busy intersection, I pick up that dropped item at the store for the harassed mum, I smile nicely at the overworked / slightly rude cashier. Maybe I do have more control over this month than I thought I had. Even though it seems a lot of us are stuck in this high on crack version of the holidays that has developed over the last 30 years or so, we can mix it up ourselves – in the privacy of our own heads – and save some sanity for us all.
Wishing you a collection of mini-miracles in each day this month. This is the end of our year and it has been so lovely to step with you through 2018. If you are joining me on our 2019 I can’t wait to get started and will see you next year!
Happy Holidays and much sanity, I promise to ask Santa to bring us all some.
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