Today I am grateful for prioritizing what matters.  I’ve long held beliefs about the importance of family and how we form our opinions and views of life.  My family holds an important place in my heart, not just from a formative perspective, but from  the perspective of support and love.  As we age and our roles transition from children, to parents, to caregivers, we create and experience a new reality and understanding of what our parents and grandparents experienced.  Times have long since shifted and we have become different people, society functions differently now—but those feelings of stability and grounding that come from our values still dictates how we operate (or at least feel we should operate).  In this moment there are roughly a million things vying for my attention, and all I can think about is getting my home ready for friends and family.  My priority right now is to create an experience for people to find the love and joy of the season and to feel the love and joy in my heart for them. As we spent Thanksgiving in particular with my family, we saw something about where the other side of our family was at and my husband got really upset.  I understood in that moment how important family was and how grateful I am for my family because not all families feel/behave the same way.  They aren’t all the same way towards each other.  I’m grateful for the support of mine.      

Today I am grateful for creating magic.  I’ve been particularly into the holiday season this year, wanting this to be bigger than what we’ve done before.  We’ve had enough loss this year that I’m focused on a few things: one we never know how much time we have with those we love, and I think we all need a little magic right now to have some fun again and remember that there is still joy and magic in the season.  I still want to feel the joy and magic of this season.  So maybe it’s also about soothing my own pain for the time being.  Maybe it’s about honoring what we’ve lost—what I’ve lost.  Maybe it’s about bringing the hope and heart and love back to the forefront of the mind for all of us.  It’s what I can provide to myself and others for dealing with the loss, for dealing with the realization that those we want most in our lives are gone or will never be who we want them to be, for dealing with the changes that inevitably come.  This season has always been special for me, and I want this one to be special for everyone, a chance to enjoy and experience the magic for themselves no matter where they are at.  I want it to overtake them, for them to be unable to not have fun.  There is magic in love, and I have put a lot of love into this as much for their healing as my own.  I’m grateful to be able to do it. 

Today I am grateful for discipline.  This tends to be a time of gluttony and overindulgence and exceptions to our routines. I am proud that I have stuck with my routines and, while yes, I have indulged a bit more than I have in the last few months, I have not truly overdone anything.  I have goals for my mental and physical and spiritual health and those are things I plan on sticking with for the long run.  I’ve managed to do just that so far, and I feel really good about keeping myself  on track with my health goals in particular.  There are bigger goals in my mind but that doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy the things I used to.  They may look different, but we can still find joy in what we do while maintaining our overall goals.  It takes effort but it’s worth it.  Change is never easy but it is always possible if we keep the goal in mind. 

Today I am grateful for honesty.  We are hosting Christmas this year as I’ve mentioned and that always creates some stress/tension—hello Clark Griswold.  But I haven’t been focusing on the stress of it even though as we are getting closer and closer, I am definitely feeling it.  We aren’t just hosting one event, we are hosting two, possibly three, and there is a lot to coordinate and organize.  For one event, I’ve had to manage the behavior of some people and let them know that we are absolutely not changing the time of a certain event because of when they are coming—that event isn’t for them and we still celebrate a certain way so we aren’t putting that on pause.  Some people around me were concerned about having that conversation, but once I did, both parties involved (myself included) understood where the other was coming from and we had a plan of action for how things would happen—and we both agreed to it.  Honesty is what keeps things moving and we really did understand where the other one was coming from—there was no arguing or animosity, we both were able to get to what we needed from the other and managed to reach both of our goals.

Today I am grateful for reminders of love.  As I’ve spent the majority of this weekend setting up for the remainder of the holidays, I’ve been a bit stressed and caught up in the time of everything—and forgotten some of the daily things I need to be doing as well.  I’ve been a little out of time as far as what needs to be done now…The holidays are coming closer and closer and I know that I have a lot to do but I can’t forget what needs to be done for right now as well.  So I’ve been distracted.  As I was in the thick of it later last night, my husband opened the garage and he was playing one of my favorite songs on full blast.  He’d wanted me to hear it and to take a second to be with him.  After we shared some songs together, my son wanted me to paint with him—decorations that I’d assigned for him to do.  I wasn’t going to at first because that has been his project for this season.  But I realized that I needed to spend sometime with him to, not just doing things for the rest of the family.  So I took a few minutes and we watched one of his favorite TV shows while we painted together.  It was important for us to take some time together and be in the moment.  My husband and son needed some time with me not focusing on work in the house for other people—they needed some love from me.  This magic is for them too, and I am grateful to feel it and share it with them.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.