I have been a total Grinch so far this holiday season. I was mad at CBS’s coverage of the Macys Thanksgiving Parade because they showed too many interviews, fussy with my kids over silly things all Thursday morning and did not have any desire to put up the tree when Friday when Abbie asked me to (it’s still NOT up either).  I believe it is in part because I have not done anything to start off the season with a bang. I did not even cook Thanksgiving dinner, and I usually cook so much we have leftovers for 4 days. I simply didn’t feel in the Christmas spirit.  I believe it is not any of that, however, but rather because my attitude has been the exact opposite of how it should be for this time of year.

Today, as I sit in the coffee shop and listen to people chatter on about how much they have gotten for so and so, and grandma asking “how much did you save today” or the mom and dad pushing the screaming baby, I see the season through their eyes and sit here chastising myself as I realize I was falling into the trap of commercialization and had forgotten who I am, and what this season means to me.

 So what is this season about? It is about giving, celebrating, loving, saying THANK YOU, charity, gratitude, taking cookies to a neighbor, holding the door for someone in the store, paying for the persons coffee behind you in line, smiling at strangers, waving at toddlers in their strollers, plugging in someone’s laptop at the coffee shop, hugging someone you care about, and telling them you love them. Going past that extra mile to show someone that you care – THAT is what this season is about.

The challenge this year, for me, is how to give back when I have so little to give (or so I think). I have fallen into a perpetual pity party because my situation has been extended longer than I’d wanted. This shouldn’t be the case; I should find the joy in this time of my life too!  So I began to think, what can I give?

Because I am NOT employed, I have time, I can make phone calls to shut-ins, or sending flyers for local toy drives, I can do simple things like retweeting for charities or other events, I can go to the local shelters and fold clothes or serve meals, go to the teen pregnancy home and offer to babysit for the moms. I can go running with my daughter when she asks, play a duet at church with my son on the piano as he plays the trumpet. I can use my time for someone other than myself.

I love to bake, so why not make some yummies for others? I can sing, why don’t I go caroling at the senior center? I play piano, again, would someone be touched because I took the time to play for them?  I can so many things that I discount as small and meaningless, I’m bilingual, perhaps someone needs help in that area. I can clean, does someone need their home cleaned?  Give, no matter how big or small, to someone other than myself, which is what I need to focus on.

            When the pronouns are taken out of a sentence, it is nothing of me and all about others. It allows a perspective to be introduced that is not self centered and Grinchy, but loving and caring and wanting to see this Season for what it is, a time for selflessness, giving and love.

            The goal is, as we wrap up this year, is to find a way to put myself into a package and give it away. To give so much of myself to others that there is nothing left to be selfish with, and see if my outlook, not only on Christmas, but on life changes, to make life not about me but all about others.  I may fall short, but in trying, I hope to prove that:

 “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. “ ~Melody Beattie

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