… is here! All day I have been receiving messages from Germany from family and friends wishing us a Merry Christmas. Their celebrations are pretty much over by now, our celebration has not even begun. We don’t open presents until Christmas morning in our house.

For us, it is less about the gifts under the tree… We love sharing this day with friends since family is so far away. It will be a small event for us this year with one other couple coming over for dinner tomorrow.

Until a week ago I was not even sure if I would decorate the house, but after a lovely pre-Christmas potluck dinner with friends in Saskatoon, I was inspired. We set up the tree and I spent an evening pulling out decorations and finding just the right spot to place them. The tree is up and one cannot ignore the time of year. We even had a little snow over the past 24 hours…

It’s the time to give thanks and express gratitude for all the wonderful things that have happened. I know, we all go through ups and downs throughout any given year and it is sometimes difficult to identify and focus on the good things. When things quiet down on Christmas Eve I make it a habit to take the time and take stock. Going through some of my journal pages it is easy to pull out the challenging events we have experienced during the past twelve months… but it is even easier to pick out the great things that have happened. I choose to focus on these. They make me smile and they bring me hope!

The stockings are hung…

…and I want to leave you with these inspirational words by Gladys Taber:

“Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today’s Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.”

Merry Christmas. May your days be filled with happy hours spent with family and friends to create wonderful memories.    Anna

 

 

 

24 Dec This entry was published on December 24, 2017 at 12:47 pm. It’s filed under Contemplative art practice, Contemplative Photography, Creativity Update, In the News, Journaling, Motivational, Photography, sharing touching the soul, Something to Smile About, Special event, staying in touch and tagged Blog, blogging, Christmas, Christmas check in, from our house to yours', just for fun, Photography, writing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.