You’ve all probably seen the car stickers “a puppy is for life not just for christmas”, and the opposite of this the gym posters advertising a free month of exercise for the month of January or some deal to entice your ‘new years you’ to sign up to the gym whilst your still filled with new years ‘endless possibilities’ positivity. Showing us the fickle ‘temporariness’ of the season.
I wrote to you about sharing happiness, and about what you put out there just before christmas. But with Christmas just past I was thinking about the time limit we as society place upon this feeling of goodwill and gratitude. For that window of just a few weeks strangers will actually chat in queue’s, will laugh if something goes wrong instead of swearing under their breath. Everyone is just that bit more lenient…..because after all ‘its christmas’. And then presents come and go and that leniency, and sharing attitude somehow gets packed away in the attic along with the baubles and good cutlery.
It shouldn’t just last a season. It shouldn’t have to be christmas for you to buy your friend a thoughtful gift, or for you to bake a few extra cakes and drop them round to a neighbours. The thoughtfulness, attitude of goodwill, the willingness to share and be grateful…..this should not just last for the short period of time that is Christmas each year. It shouldn’t become like the gym that we only sign up for and go to for a month before our ‘senses kick in’, and it shouldn’t be like a puppy you buy without thinking long term.
Think about ‘christmas you’. And I don’t mean the you that suddenly gains the ability to pack away more food in one sitting than you ever thought possible. I mean the you that feels more lenient towards strangers instead of having tunnel vision thinking about yourself as you rush down the high street, the you that takes joy in picking out a gift you know a friend would really love or appreciate and giving it to them. The you that actually appreciates what you have. It’s not just me that has christmas goggles, you now the ones, the ones that make everything look just that bit more magical and not just because everything is covered in tinsel and fairy lights. At christmas its easier to find the good in people, in places.
But now christmas is over, I’m lucky enough to be on holiday staying with my cousins and enjoying some sunshine! So for now it’s pretty easy for me to keep those gratitude and happiness attitudes!! But I mean to keep them even when I fly back to England which no doubt will be as I left it….cold and wet.
Love my mug!!! Very kindly made for us by Hannah’s mum Sarah!
I Hope you all had a wonderful christmas, filled to the brim with good food and friends and family.
But what do your christmas goggles show you?
Do you act one way in the season and only for the season?
ANDYS BEAT! 