Day 12 – Merry Christmas – What Fun Will You Create Today?

It’s day 12 already!!

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What shifts and changes have  you noticed in how the holidays are showing up for you this year?

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How about how you are showing up in and with the holidays?

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Have you created more ease, joy, happiness and fun?

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Are things less stressful?

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Keep using the tools as you finish out the year.

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Note what shows up.

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Express Gratitude for all of the shifts and changes!

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Thank you for joining me for this journey!

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What fun can you create now for today? Enjoy your day!

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I’ll post the results of the Gratitude Game later today!

Day 11 – Holiday Blessings

What holiday blessings do you have?

Look around you, what blessings are there?

You see, blessings don’t necessarily jump right out at you and say, “Yo, here I am!”

And they don’t always show up in the form that you expect them to show up.

Sometimes blessings are things, sometimes situations, other times people, and more.

Blessings don’t always bring exactly what you ask for or expect or even ask, but they often bring exactly what you need. Just like that Rolling Stones song “You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you find you get what you need.”

We get so caught up in how our blessings should look and how they should show up that we often don’t recognize them as blessings.

It’s like the story where a storm comes to a small town and creates a flood. As the waters rise, the local preacher kneels in prayer on the church porch, surrounded by water.

By and by, one of the townsfolk comes up the street in a canoe. "Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast."

"No," says the preacher. "I have faith in the Lord. He will save me."

Still the waters rise. Now the preacher is up on the balcony, wringing his hands in supplication, when another guy zips up in a motorboat. "Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee's gonna break any minute."

Once again, the preacher is unmoved. "I shall remain. The Lord will see me through."

After a while the levee breaks, and the flood rushes over the church until only the steeple remains above water. The preacher is up there, clinging to the cross, when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and a state trooper calls down to him through a megaphone.

"Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance."

Once again, the preacher insists the Lord will deliver him.

And, predictably, he drowns.

The preacher goes to heaven. After a while he gets an interview with God, and he asks the Almighty, "Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. Why didn't you deliver me from that flood?"

God shakes his head. "What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter."

Now, what did the preacher expect? Obviously something different than the 2 boats and a helicopter. The point being that he ignored the blessings that were sent because they didn’t match his expectations.

The lesson? When you are looking for your blessings, let go of your expectations and look for what really showed up! It might just be exactly what you need!

Day 10 – Favorite Traditions

What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Do you do them every year or at least some years?

Have you given them up?

Would you like to do them this year?

Sometimes we give up traditions because whoever led them at gatherings is no longer there or doesn’t do them any longer.

If it is something that you enjoy and would like to do, how about offering to lead it now. And if it is something that someone else used to do, offer to do it to honor that person.

Or if you are in a different group of people now, ask if they would like you to show them something that was meaningful to you in previous  years.

What would it take for you to carry on the traditions that you love?

Now is a great time!

Day 9 – Holiday Silliness – Ugly Sweaters

And speaking of holiday silliness that makes you smile or even laugh out loud, how about those ugly Christmas sweaters?

Now, I must say that I have only had ONE sweater/sweatshirt that I considered even bordered on being ugly, but others have complained about my “Fa-la-la-la-la Godzil-la” shirt as being ugly! Quirky maybe, but not ugly!!

This year I went into Target and they specifically had a section of “ugly Christmas sweaters” that included entire suits (jacket and pants) that were holiday print!

As I went through the section of the store they not only had sweaters, suits, sweatshirts and t-shirts, they also had socks and ties! So this ugly holiday clothing thing is really getting big!

And it made me smile and even laugh as I walked around looking at everything!

I have even seen and attended ugly Christmas sweater parties! How about you?

Do you have an ugly Christmas item of clothing? Does it make you happy to wear it? Does it make you smile when you see other people’s ugly Christmas clothing?

If so, then enjoy it! Share it! Laugh with it!

Make the holidays fun (or ugly clothing time)!

I gotta go get my “Fa-la-la-la-la Godzil-la” shirt!!

Day 8 – Holiday Silliness – Silly Songs

Do you have any silly holiday songs that you enjoy?

Yesterday I was looking through the music channels on TV and came across the Sounds of the Season channel. The song that was playing was All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth from 1948 done by Spike Jones and his City Slickers.  Spike Jones sang “using the falsetto voice of a little boy unable to pronounce words with the letter S”.

Though the song is annoying I do remember as a child that my grandfather loved singing it to us when one of the grandchildren lost a tooth. So it made me smile.

I remember other childhood songs like Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman and You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch. I still enjoy those.

Then there are the spoof songs from Twisted Christmas albums like Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer and Walkin’ ‘Round in Women’s Underwear (which I do daily, by the way) and Oh Little Town of Bethlehem done to the tune of House of the Rising Sun.

What silly holiday songs make you smile? What regular holiday songs make you smile?

Listen to a few the next time you are feeling stressed or down; they will probably still bring a smile to your face.

Oh I can hear Burl Ives singing Have A Holly Jolly Christmas now!!

Day 7 – Joys of Holiday Present

We continue our 12 Days of Gratitude for the Holidays by looking at this Holiday season.

Take a few minutes to reflect upon what is going on with the current holiday season.

What are you enjoying? What are you not enjoying?

What would you like to change? What is preventing you from changing it?

How could you bring enjoyable experiences into this holiday right now?

Perhaps it would be more fun if YOU took charge of some portion of the holiday and made it yours. That would allow you to share what you enjoy with others. How might that improve your relationship with them?

Bring the joys of what you enjoy into the present holiday season and share it with others to create more joy and happiness for all of you.

Day 6 – ​Be Grateful For What You Have

Did you know that expressing gratitude and writing it down increases endorphins and helps reduce depression?

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Sometimes we forget to appreciate our homes, our cars, and all of the other things that we have and instead get caught up in judging them, wishing they were bigger or more luxurious.

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For example, your home is an energy field and is much more than bricks and boards.  It is there protecting you and sheltering you.  Use positive words about it.  Tell it how much you appreciate it and all that it provides for you.

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Do the same for other things in your life.

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Being grateful for what you have now does not mean that you can’t ask for more or ask for something different it simply lets the universe know that you appreciate what you have.

AND you can ask for more and different too. It’s like saying, “thank you for my salad AND now I would like my main course.” Or “thank you that I graduated high school AND now I am ready for college.”

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So be grateful for all that you have and, if you’d like something else, then ask for it.

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Open those doors to more and greater through gratitude.

Day 5 – ​Be Grateful For You

The first step to having gratitude for everything is to have gratitude for you. When you don’t have gratitude for you, you can’t have it for another.

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Allow yourself to be grateful for YOU and all of your talents and accomplishments

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Gratitude for You Exercise

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• Relax​
  
• Take a deep breath​
  
• Ask yourself what are you grateful for about you?​
  
• Really get the energy and the sense of being grateful for that.​
  
• Sit with that gratitude for a while​
  
• Write down what you are grateful for​
  
• Repeat if you’d like to

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Do this one every day.

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Today, celebrate your existence, celebrate being!

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Be grateful for YOU!!!

Day 4 – Letting Go Of Past Difficulties

How did you do with yesterday and being grateful for holidays past?

Today let’s reflect upon some of those difficult holidays.

Are you still hanging onto them? Do they still make you upset?

Would you be willing to do an exercise to release them? Great!

• Get your journal if you’d like.
• Sit down and relax.
• Take a deep breath.
• Repeat the following for each of the difficult times that still upsets you

1. Write down the difficult time for reference.
2. What is coming up for you?  Write it down
3. What does all that upset create in your life? Write it down.
4. What would you like instead? Write it down.
5. Take another deep breath.
6. Say “Thank you for this new clarity. I release those feelings now.”
7. Shake your arms and body a bit to “shake it off.”

Do you feel lighter now?

Day 3 – Be Grateful For Holidays Past

How are you doing so far with the holidays? Are you experiencing more gratitude?

Let’s look back on holidays past and express gratitude for them.

Get a piece of paper or a journal and a pen or pencil.

Sit in a comfortable place and relax.

Take a moment to recall holidays of the past and ask yourself what are you grateful for about them?

If they were fun, what made them fun?

If they were difficult, what did you learn, what blessing came from them – you see, sometimes it is the difficult times that teach us the most, moves us forward the fastest and shows us the strengths we have and the blessings too! Be grateful for your choice in creating these.

Jot down as many things as come up for you that you are grateful for about holidays past.

Now you have them to look back on at any time.

Day 2 – Preserving Your Holidays

For many years my mother created a Christmas card to send out by drawing it and writing or copying a poem in the card. Everyone enjoyed seeing what she would create each year.

She and I saved all of the cards. One year for Christmas I took all of the cards she had sent me and then found her originals of the ones she had sent out when I was a child and put all of them in an album along with pictures from each of those years.

She was so happy to see it and continued adding to it each year until she stopped drawing pictures for the annual card.

I am so grateful for having all of that recorded.

What can you do to remember and preserve the holiday experiences that you enjoy?

Photo albums, group pictures, mementos of the season? What would preserve it for you?

Start it today!

Then you can look back and have gratitude for all the good times!

Day 1 - Joys of Holidays Past

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We begin our 12 Days of Gratitude for the Holidays by taking Inventory of the Joys of Holidays.

Take a few minutes to reflect upon holidays of the past.

What did you enjoy? What did you not enjoy?

What made it fun?

Thank all of those things for what they brought to your life

How could you bring those enjoyable experiences into your holidays now?

Sometimes we can simply recreate the experience, other times sharing what it was like in the past can also bring that joy forward.

Bring the joys of the past forward to create more joy and happiness in the present.