'Tis the Season to be Jolly..

I've always found that particular carol line to be peculiar. After all, from a statistical point-of-view, the Christmas season is actually the least-jolly time of the year. People are stressed, many feel lonely, reminders of loss are abundant, gift-givers are financially strapped and suicide rates climb to an all-year high.

Oh, right, this is a blog about being happy and positive...I'll get to that part..

I woke up the other morning (that was the first good news of the day) and started thinking about what makes me happy during the Christmas season? Well, for starters, SNOW makes me enormously happy.  I love the beauty of it when it falls, the peacefulness when the ground is covered and it glistens in the sunlight or moonlight.  It's like a cozy blanket covering the city.  I love that.  I love small gatherings of friends and family, the food, soft Christmas music, and sitting next to my twinkling tree while I sip my coffee in the morning. I love that. I love wood stoves, long Sunday runs, the smell of cloves and clementines, and watching the dogs skid around the yard with icicles stuck to their eyebrows.  I love that. I love staying in my pajamas from Christmas Eve until boxing day, new slippers, and having the children home from school for two weeks (okay maybe I'm more happy the 1st week).  So, there is a lot that I love about Christmas apparently.  I think I will embrace all that I love about the 'season to be jolly' and I'll turn away from the things that have provoked stress in me.  It is, after all, up to me to decide if I will have a happy holiday or not. I guess it really will be jolly. :0)

Giving up the need to be RIGHT.

This year I learned an important lesson.  I finally decided that being "right" doesn't really matter.  This doesn't mean that I don't have a point of view, it just means that I don't feel the intense need to defend my point of view to others anymore.  Sometimes I forget this lesson, and I feel myself starting to argue my point or mentally criticizing others for their point of view.  I am learning that someone else can have a drastically different point of view from my own and that it doesn't make them WRONG.  It just means that their experience has given them a different perspective.  It doesn't have to make sense to me.  It doesn't have to seem logical to me.  It doesn't have to meet my standards.  I don't have to be RIGHT and "they" don't have to be WRONG.  We can agree or disagree and it doesn't make me better or worse at the end of the day.  It is very freeing to give up on the RIGHT-fighting.  It takes a lot of energy to try to change someone else's mind.  So, instead, I'll spend my energy on my own thoughts and attitude and I'll let others see the world through their own lenses.

Sometimes the bumpiest roads lead to the most wonderful destinations..

Sometimes I get a plan in my head and it's all I can think about.  To be truthful, I get a bit obsessive about it.  I think about it when I wake up, while I shower, while I'm at my desk, while I'm driving, and I talk about it a lot.  I think of my plan when I'm eating, and just before I go to bed at night.  Sometimes I wake in the night, and think of it a little more. I get excited about my plans and can hardly wait for them to come to fruition.  I use a lot of time and energy creating my ideal situation in my mind.  So, it feels pretty rotten when my plan doesn't turn out in exactly the way I want it to.  When this happened in my youth, it could sometimes feel devastating. With time, and experience, I know that it's okay when my plans don't turn out the way my mind decided they would.  My plan may need to be revised, shaped, and guided in a different direction.  It's never the end of the world, it's just a unexpected detour toward my goal.  At the end of the day, I have never, never, been disappointed by where the detour took me.  It's always a better place than my original plan could have imagined.