I’ve got a few more guest posts on gratitude but today you will be hearing from me on the subject.

I cringe at the thought of the month of December. The marketing hype around all of the stuff that we need to buy, the competitive mothering that somehow evolves into a pissing contest of craftiness and all those warm fuzzy feeling we are supposed to have, it overwhelms me. I’ve tried to make the most of it, we’ve made a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas and transitioned to giving gifts in November for Thanksgiving but still I’m a hater of the holidays. Maybe it’s because we have to give Claire Valium to control the seizures that are a result of her innocent excitement of the festivities or that I still don’t know what to tell people to get her for a gift. I feel horrible that I go from focusing on thanksgiving and being in a place of gratitude to hating the holidays so quickly.

Last week I read a post that concluded with a challenge to a complaint fast through the end of the year. The thought really liberated me. I’ve been frustrated that the stores have been putting up Christmas stuff already, pressuring us to need what we really don’t. They aren’t going to stop and after we all stuff ourselves with turkey its going to really ramp up. So this year I’m taking a different approach. I’m going to keep Thanksgiving going through Christmas. When I think about it, the two really do go hand in hand. Since I’ve made this decision I’ve been liberated to not hate Christmas. We even put up our tree and all the decorations. Sure, Claire was in her bed seizing and vomiting while our friends decorated the tree with Chloe, but we’ve got awesome friends that decorated our tree for us, that’s petty great.

Claire loves the tree, she loves to look at the lights, it’s something she really enjoys and gives her peace and I am thankful for that. I’m glad that this year we will allow her an extra two weeks of that pleasure. Living in Rettland I’ve learned to look at things differently. I would have never thought I would be that person, the one who broke out the tree and the Christmas tunes in mid November. I never thought to focus on thanksgiving through the end of the year either. I feel like it’s a pretty good trade and maybe it will make some of the hard stuff a bit easier.