Today is Christmas Day. Even though I’ve been intentionally carving out time to reflect, I still feel like Christmas snuck up on me again this year. I even purposely made sure that we did most our Christmas shopping and wrote out all our cards in early December, but I still couldn’t avoid the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. I guess I can just sense it or breathe it in the air.
My Gratitude List for Christmas and the Holiday Season:
- The Lights. Seeing all the decorated trees and houses make me feel so warm and cozy inside no matter where I am.
- Christmas music. Just like cherry blossom season is temporary, there really is something special about Christmas music being temporary. I really try to fully enjoy it while it’s the “reserved” time of year. Although I was tempted to start it early when all the stores were pushing for sales, I waited and didn’t end up getting sick of it prematurely!
- Family time is especially sweet when you have moved away from home. And that’s probably all we can really handle. :P
- Cat Sitters. Thanks Princess, Ki Hong, & Hayoung for taking care of our cats for us while we’re gone! Otherwise, our cats would be very lonely and we wouldn’t be able to visit our family over the holidays. You guys are the best!
- The Month of Kindness. People try to be kinder during the holiday season. You can tell that people are making the effort. Also, I know this is a genius commercial / campaign by WestJet, but it made me smile.
- Gingerbread House Party. We made our first gingerbread house together! I’m also thankful for Lana and Nathan for hosting & for their generosity. I know they spent a lot of time, money, and energy to make sure everyone had a good time.
- Disneyland. We went with Jen and Ben last week, and it looked extra magical with their winter decorations and lights!
- Avoiding the craziness. Somehow we managed to avoid the crowds this entire holiday season. We went shopping on Black Friday. We even went shopping two days ago! We must have hit this sweet pocket of time and space where people weren’t shopping.
- The gifts. Thankful for everyone who thought of us. I am especially surprised when people actually remember what I like from conversations I don’t even remember.
- Free Beer. I’ve been trying all these new craft beers for free all week! At Taco Mac they messed up my order, and they were really slow, so I got all my beers for free. And the growler place we were picking up a Christmas present from tapped out and ended up giving us 32 oz of Mother Earth Dark Cloud! Merry Christmas, indeed!
Is this where we flaunt the stuff we got? Or is it considered braggy / showing off? I guess it always depends on where your heart is. I posted some on instagram, so I figure that’s enough bragging for now, but I still wanted to use this space to say thank you! You guys are awesome and made our Christmas extra special! Thanks for thinking of us and for being in our lives.
Did you get everything you wished for on Christmas? What did you get?
I’ve had a few other Christmas related posts this year if you want to check them out: 9 simple ways to give back this Christmas, A Traveler Gift Guide of 25 Gifts, and Confessions of a bad gift receiver. And this post is week 15 of practicing gratitude and you can see all my other gratitude posts by clicking on the banner below:
