Tis The Season

Tis the season!

I hope everyone is stress free, having a wonderful holiday season. There is a great deal of sadness around us, life is full of ups and downs and sometimes the downer is unspeakably tragic. Being grateful for the positive while dealing with the negative is a hard row to hoe.

Thankful.

I am still stuck on thankful. Waking up alive, the day is beautiful and I have more than I can do.

Never a dull moment.

When someone tells me they are bored, my jaw falls open uncontrollably. I don't think I've been bored since I was a small child. I once make the huge mistake of telling my mother I was bored.

She lit into me to read a book, go outside and play, ride a bike, go for a hike, practice the piano, play with the dog, clean up my room, do my homework, find someone to play a game with but for goodness sakes do not ever again announce that I was bored. There was always plenty to do.

I've made it a point to never be bored ever since, because obviously my mother instilled in me that this was a self-made tragedy not to be endured.

Indeed my mother was a busy person, working tirelessly to take care of a big family who was largely ungrateful. We took for granted all the wonderful things she did for us on a daily basis. We all sat down to breakfast at the table 7 days a week, ditto for dinner and lunch on the weekends. These were all home cooked meals. Besides keeping house without many of the modern appliances available now, she also took time to do numerous things for her friends, family and public. She volunteered for many extra activities that benefited our school, the church, the community, the Shriner's Hospital and those less fortunate.

Around the Christmas holidays she would patiently teach us how to make and decorate cookies from scratch, how to bake cakes and pies.These were often delivered as gifts but we always got to keep some around to munch on. She planned and made a huge wonderful Christmas feast for us to enjoy.

We never found out where she hid our gifts, even after we ceased to believe in Santa Claus, he somehow magically appeared late Christmas Eve leaving gifts for us to find in the morning. The cookies and milk we always left out for him, magically vanished, leaving behind just a saucer with crumbs and an empty cup.

Maybe she hid our gifts next door. The couple next door had long ago raised their children who were gone and on their own. I always meant to ask her where she hid Christmas. There were times when she might she leave us alone long enough to search the house. We never found them. Of course we usually only had 10 minutes to find them, as she only went to the end of the street to pickup milk or bread or something from the store or to briefly see the neighbors.

We were oh so lucky and we took it for granted.

Be tankful for what you have. 

Pray for those less fortunate.