The Experiment: Day 58 ~ It’s Saturday And The Holidays Are On The Way…

Here we go, in the week ahead we begin what I have always called The Thanksgiving to New Year Holiday Slide. I have been absolutely rattled and a nervous wreck for years through the holidays because my bipolary/anxious/depressed brain just couldn’t take all the changes in scheduling and the out of the ordinary things popping up all over the place. Living with mental health challenges since I was young has meant that I have had carefully designed, rigid, schedules and routines to get me through the days and when the holidays came my routines fell all apart. But this year things are different and I am so excited. And it’s not that I am sailing along in a state of perfect happiness with no troubles whatsoever. One of the people closest to me in my life is going through a devastating time in her life and it has been so heartbreaking. This means I may be spending Thanksgiving alone and the holidays themselves will be very tenuous this year. But feeling better across the board, feeling stronger than I ever remember feeling, has enabled me to get back to my mindfulness practice, to move more slowly through my days, to take each moment as it comes, and to celebrate all the little things along the way. If I am alone on Thanksgiving I will make a beautiful day of it for the pugs and I. And the day after Thanksgiving I am going to put my Christmas lights up on my front porch and hang my wreath, a large wreath that is pre-lit with multi-colored lights, and it’s not the wreath of my dreams but it’s less than half the price of the wreath I wanted, and I have ordered a box of tiny ornaments to put on it. I am looking very forward to it.

And oh my gracious, how magical the days are, you just won’t believe what I got in the mail? (I am all giggly and twinkly just thinking about this!) Last Monday, on a particularly hard day when the bad news had just come down, a visitor carried a large heavy box in for me, it was 9:00 at night and I hadn’t even known it was on the porch. I was curious and baffled as to what it might be. Well great day in the morning! It was a box from my dear fried Jim who wrote a long beautiful letter to go with it. He said, reminding me of a blog post that I wrote in September where I talked about the fact that we should all have a Joy-Box filled with special things just to delight us on hard days, that he had wanted to make a Joy-Box for me, and holy macaroni! it is a BIG box! Under his lovely letter there was a sparkly Santa Claus which I have right here beside my computer, and then a big white piece of paper covering everything, and then on the very top, unwrapped, were two Dr. Seuss books! One of my all time favorites that I had written about on the blog because I read it so often to my 3 children I still have it memorized! It’s called Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! The other one I had never heard of and I thought I knew ALL the Dr. Seuss books! It’s called Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? It is precious and makes me feel so happy just to read it! The NEXT thing I opened was a positively GORGEOUS HUGE cup from Starbucks with a lid and a straw. It will be perfect for iced coffee. THEN I opened a box of twinkly lights! Can you imagine how exciting this is for a 63 year old woman who really doesn’t get many gifts any more at my age? He said it wasn’t a Christmas box really and I said “It is to me!” I have just opened one gift each day. There are MORE! It’s a big box just full of amazing things. I haven’t even opened any the last couple of days. I have been savoring it. It’s sitting there all in the box it came in on my kitchen counter and I just light up like a Christmas tree every time I see it!

And tonight my darling daughter Rachel is coming over and we are going to watch one of my all time favorite movies, it’s a Thanksgiving movie with Holly Hunter called “Home For The Holidays.” I have seen it several times but the last couple of years or so you haven’t been able to get it on Netflix or Amazon. You could buy it, but not rent it or get it free to watch. I was over the moon happy to see that it is available this year. And yesterday I took two of the puggeries to the vet for their “Spa Day” and they came home all soft and fluffy and adorable and I can’t stop kissing them! The holidays are so much fun with the pugs.

I also ordered an inexpensive but darling wreath for the inside of my studio door here, with lights, and it’s beautiful and has cardinals and a little nest and it is just enchanting. Oh, I’m getting so excited about decorating for Christmas. I don’t decorate the whole house as some people do but I will have more this year than I have in a very long time. That’s the gift I am giving myself this year. I am beginning to bring the magic back to Dragonfly Cottage which I have not done since the fire almost 4 years ago. The house has never really felt like mine since it was rebuilt. It’s lovely but all the things I loved so much are gone, lost in the firey blaze that awful night. But I am beginning to embrace it as my home again, and this year will be the first year since the fire I will have put up my beloved blue lights all across the front porch and the Christmas wreath on the front door and one here in the studio too. Baby steps. I love Christmas so much, I always have since I was a little girl. It was a really big deal when I was growing up. Now it’s just me but I have finally realized we have to make our own magic, and I intend to do just that. And I’m going to have to hang up the twinkly lights here in the studio that Jim sent me. Deck The Halls and all that!

And I LOVE Christmas music and I don’t play it until the day after Thanksgiving but I will be playing it from then all the way up to New Years Day. I am so old-fashioned and nostalgic and I do cry a little over memories lost in time, and all the family and friends who have passed away, but I have my children and grandchildren and I will be spending Christmas with them so the holidays will be filled with love and joy. And all my grandbabies will be here! How can I not be thrilled about that.

I do miss the days when I sent out one hundred or more Christmas cards. I always used to do that. So many family members on both sides of my husband’s family and mine, so many friends, friends we went to school with, friends we made as adults, friends from my husband’s work and our family of friends we had collected through the years. But the years have gone on, I am divorced, most of the family, the older ones, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, have died out. Now I send e-cards to a few family and friends and it feels kind of lame but it’s something. I used to tape up Christmas cards on the cabinets all over the kitchen. Now the kitchen cupboards are bare, but I will have to think of a way to decorate them anyway. Some little cheap things from the Dollar Store will do. One day I will make handmade gifts again. I’m looking forward to bringing that back into my life.

So yes, there is so much to look forward to despite some hard times, the natural sadness that comes with the season for those who are no longer with us, and all the rest, but it is a season to have love and joy in our hearts, and OH! All the Christmas MOVIES! I HAVE to watch White Christmas every year, and there are so many more. And it’s not Christmas without The Charlie Brown Christmas special. Gracious me, I have watched that since I was in gradeschool, and with my 3 children as they grew, and with my adult kids, and now alone with the pugs. We can cherish so many things that we always have. I certainly intend to.

Ah what a dreamy afternoon it’s been. This time next week my Christmas decorations will be up. Can you believe it’s here already? And I am going to say, paraphrasing Dr. Seuss, The time has come, the time is now, it’s the holidays, will you celebrate with me right now?  I hope you will. I would love to hear in the comments what you do for the holidays, how you decorate, what you cook, and all the glorious memories you have, the things you celebrate. Do share with me!

Make merry any way you can, and spread all the love you can to everybody, everywhere…

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda