Sunday, July 6, 2008

Approach Christmas with a grateful heart

December 9, 2007


After 26 hours of driving, pounds of food and many laughs, my family and I returned gratefully from visiting family in upstate New York for Thanksgiving.


When we went around the Thanksgiving table and stated what filled us with gratitude, my mother said, "I'm just happy to be here."

Because she was diagnosed with cancer in June, this pronouncement was indeed profound. We were all happy that she and everyone else around the table were there.


Gratitude at its starkest starts with "being." That we are human is unconsciously attached to our being and is the problem with gratitude. We should be glad to be alive and part of the human race, but often we are not.


For example, this past week there was an e-mail in my work inbox inviting all employees to a wellness seminar to cope with holiday stress. If the holidays are a time for family interaction, spiritual rededication and joyful gift-giving, why are we stressed? Shouldn't we be grateful for all that we are and delighted that the holidays give us time off to remember one another and reconnect with those who make us feel human?


This year, two of my children are in college, and the third is a senior in high school. Each is employed part-time and suffering economic doldrums. When my eldest daughter sent me a text message and asked what my husband and I wanted for Christmas, I wrote back, "You're broke. Make a card. Write a poem. Send a picture. Don't buy any presents." My daughter called me later that night and agreed but said it would be a strange Christmas without the usual pile of gifts under the tree.


Luckily for her, I didn't go into a "being there" lecture. I reminded her that this was our gift to one another and that change is a good thing.


Then I started to plot. Certainly some inexpensive "stocking stuffers" was OK under this arrangement. Santa was coming down the chimney no matter our decision. I arranged my schedule and schemed time to get to particular stores on sale days. Soon I needed the wellness seminar to lighten the anxiety I felt about getting this all done. Any feeling of gratitude about all of us being together again was gone.

I'm going to take my mom's sage advice this Christmas. I'll be happy to be here with my family. I will host my annual Christmas cookie baking party for all the cul-de-sac kids and drive around the neighborhood to look at decorations. But that's it. In the peace of gratitude, all I want for Christmas is thankful presence.


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