Here come the holidays!
As much as I anticipate the holiday season and look forward to this time of year, it seems I always forget just how much work it takes to create a nice experience for all involved.
I wish I could pluck my holiday visions right out of my head and make them a reality.
Sadly, the cozy family gathered peacefully around a fire cheerfully chatting it up in a perfectly decorated house with a nice spread of food does not quite match what actually happens.
Somehow my visions and memories never include all the planning, grocery shopping, cleaning, crowds, lists, lines, time crunches, spending, and family logistics involved in the season.
Equipped with my "life coaching, limiting-belief busting skills" I headed to the grocery store on Saturday to get my Thanksgiving shopping done.
Success! It was completely stress free.
Sunday it was time to tackle the cleaning. Most years I host Thanksgivng at my house and this year is no exception. I had to get things ready.
Okay, not gonna lie, as I was vaccuming up dust bunnies the thoughts started creeping in. "Why do I have to do this?", "Why can't I just show up at someone's house and plop myself down and enjoy a fully cooked meal for once?"
Don't get me wrong, I do truly enjoy cooking and having people over and it's just easier logistically to accomodate both sides of the family at my house, but getting everything ready is not my favorite.
Back to vaccuming...suddenly I hear a loud crash in the kitchen.
I ran in to see what happened to find the dog had pulled a pot of chili off the stove. It was a small pot, leftovers from my son's lunch, but still enough to make a big mess in my freshly cleaned kitchen.
It was at this point where my old self would have lost it. Snapped. Done.
Have you ever cleaned splattered chili off cabinets, rugs and every other imaginable surface in the kitchen? Me either! My son, being the nice kid he is (and the one who left the pot on the stove) started cleaning it up, so I maintained my cool and went back to vaccuuming dust bunnies.
No need to make a scene, just move on to the task at hand.
That's when it happened.
I almost sucked it right up the vacuum hose. The earring I lost a year ago. While at work.
Right there on the floor at the edge of a bookshelf was my missing earring. How was this possible?
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Given to me by a friend many years ago, these were my go-to earrings. I wore them most days. Devestated when I discovered it was missing, I searched all over my office, in the hallways, the office restroom, and even my car. It was cold out that day and I was wearing a scarf. Fishhook earrings can easily slip out if you don't have a back on them which I did not at the time. It was simply gone.
In the time between then and now, my house has been thoroughly cleaned. Surely it would have been sucked up if it was under the bookcase (how could it possibly get there anyway?), but it was laying in plain sight, it was not actually under the bookshelf when I found it.
Weird.
I am choosing to take it as a reminder to pause and appreciate what the holidays are really about, spending time with family in my cozy warm house. Forget the rest. To remember what I am grateful for and to not sweat the small stuff, who cares about spilled chili when we are lucky enough to have chili in the first place.
Who cares about planning, grocery shopping, cleaning, crowds, lists, lines, time crunches, spending, and family logistics if we don't appreciate what we do it all for. The people we love.
I am grateful.
When we are grateful and we acknowledge what we have, we open the door for good things to happen. Try it. Pay attention. See what happens.
How that earring made its appearance at that exact moment doesn't really matter, I got the message.
Happy Thanksgiving!
"There are only two ways you can live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein