Thankful Jar

In less than 48 hours it will be Thanksgiving Day. We are looking forward to spending a good part of the day with Steve's parents and our children and grandchildren. Steve's dad is still doing fairly well, but we thought it would be easier to take the Thanksgiving meal to them at their house rather than have them travel to our place like they have often done for previous Thanksgivings. We will enjoy a special day with family and as with any time when we get together with Steve's dad it will be in the the back of our minds as to whether this is the last time we get to celebrate an occasion like this with him present. We continue to take one day at a time and appreciate every moment that he still feels well enough to join in the festivities. 

As I've shared before on this blog,

{Excerpt from Blog-December 2, 2013...Well, here we are at the busy time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I usually never feel settled at this time of year for a number of reasons. Although I absolutely love Christmas music and beautiful lights and the significance of Jesus' birth, I always have the feeling that there is something that I need to do, and someplace that I need to go, and something that I need to buy, and that somehow I never quite do the whole Christmas season as well as everyone else does. I suppose it is just too much looking at what everyone else is doing, how beautifully they are decorating, and how many dozens of Christmas cookies that they made etc, that makes me feel inadequate and think that I don't do this time of the year justice, and that my poor family suffers because of it...}

sometimes I let the pressures and demands of this season of the year overwhelm me. Right now, there are some things in my life that feel worrisome and I can let myself be consumed with anxiety as I wonder how everything will work out. Add that to the typical stress I feel over the holiday season and I can easily become depressed and lethargic. However, on the bright side, there is also a lot of good things going on in my life and it is on those that I want to put my focus on the next month. I have decided to make a "Thankful Jar" for this season. Each day, starting Thanksgiving Day and ending on Christmas Day, I am going to write on a piece of paper something specific that happened that day for which I am thankful and put it into the jar. 

I am actually really looking forward to this activity. I think it will help with my overall outlook on life and maybe it will open my eyes as to how much I really have to be thankful for. Hopefully there will be days when it will be hard to select one thing because there are numerous ones I could choose from. On Christmas Day, I am going to open my jar and read through them all. That will be my Christmas present to myself!

Anyone want to join me? Steve? J