Happy Day After Thanksgiving November 23, 2007

On the day after thanksgiving what do you do?  Do you run out with the masses of crazy people shopping the hyped up sales but actually spending more time in line than actually purchasing?  Do you simply sit at home waiting for the appropriate time to be able to eat the leftovers?  Or do you finish cleaning up the turkey decorations and start putting up the December holiday ones?

This day after Thanksgiving, I did none of those.  It didn’t help that I was battling a cold and was losing.  But I never do the shopping thing because I know that they same sales they are offering today will be there next week.  However, I do admire others that go out there and do battle to shop.  I know some families have that as a ritual and it truly is a testament to this great nation that the thing we do after giving thanks is go out and buy more stuff.  However, after a day of being with family and giving thanks you might need a little shopping therapy.  

It seems to me that the holidays are all just blending into themselves.  We used to have at least a month before we started seeing the decorations for the next holiday, but not any more.  It almost feels like Thanksgiving is going to get pushed out of being a holiday altogether with the hurry of the advertisers to get Christmas up on the boards.  I am sure most of us would agree that the commercialism of the holidays has become extreme.  I mean I am so sick of carols and holiday ads that I could throw up once December 24th actually rolls around.  It’s sad because I really used to love the Christmas holidays.  The smells, traditions, lights, cold weather, wrapping presents used to fire me up for the holiday and its accoutrement.  Now I find myself feeling a bit bah humbug, why is that?

It appears to me that getting older has something to do with that.  The magic of the holidays seems to dim as we grow older.  We recapture it a bit when we have children, but once they too start to age, the bliss of holidays seems to grow tired and just another thing we have to do.  So how do we recapture the joy that the holidays hold?  

This year we are going away for Christmas.  A change of scenery always seems to help with the tedium of the known.  We’re going to enjoy snow this holiday and I am looking forward to throwing some snowballs.  Living where snow is not the norm, I thought that having something new would be a great way to rekindle some spark of the holidays.  I picture snow blowing outdoors as we stomp in from making a snowman only to find hot cocoa and marshmallows waiting for me.  It sounds very picturesque, doesn’t it?  Will it end up like that?  Who knows, what I do know is that even if I am older and the magic of childhood doesn’t live on, the magic of happiness does.  Therefore, how do you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year?  By being happy.

Tall order you might say.  True, it isn’t always easy to be happy about where you are in your life.  It isn’t even easy to be happy about who is sharing your holidays with you.  But what you can do is find the moments.  When you look at a holiday in a lump sum then of course it seems daunting to make the whole time joyous and festive.  But if you look to just the small moments of feeling that snow crunch in your hand.  Or actually tasting the hot cocoa as it touches your lips, then you can find the joy of the holiday season.  As usual in our lives, we make the holidays like another chore we have to do.  You know a checklist of what we need to do.  Make extra money -check.  Get presents - check.  Wrap presents - check.  Make cookies - check.  Spend time with family - check.  Smile and be joyous - check.  See the Nutcracker for the 15th time - check.  

So this holiday season, starting with today the day after Thanksgiving, I am going to look for the small moments and not begin this holiday season with the big picture spoiling the joy.  It’s the day after Thanksgiving, that means you have a day to do what you want…so what will it be for you?  Because the idea of the holidays is love, joy, and giving.  That doesn’t mean just to others, but to yourself as well.  Make sure you put your own holiday needs on your shopping list and that you actually make that present to yourself.  It’s important for us to feel that joy comes to us in ways we gift ourselves, that way we are not let down if we only get an ugly sweater with Santa on it for a present this year.  We can smile and know that the gift that we gave ourselves made up for that. 

Gift yourself….and start today.  Because we all know that there is no time to give to you than the present!