This is Optimal Living Daily, the meaning of the season, and bring back Christmas, both by Allie Cornish of Everthrive.org and Dostomolic, the guy that reads to you every single day of the year, including weekends and holidays, to be live a more meaningful and positive life. Speaking of holidays, I have two posts today for you talking about this season, both from Everthrive.org, so let's get right to them as we optimize your life. The meaning of the season by Allie Cornish of Everthrive.org. The holidays force us to make time to be grateful, to connect with family, and to engage in conversation around a plentiful table.
We cook together, clean together, travel together, and close proximity. We sleep on the floor so that the older ones can take the beds. We make room for the cats, for the dog, and we snuggle on couches without tea while watching the parade on TV. There is stillness and simplicity in breathing the same air as our mothers and fathers and grandparents.
There's a calm that accompanies the repetition of time-tested tradition. There's a warmth that memories of the past bring to our hearts, and there's a sweetness in the expectation of happy holidays to come. Varying and type and degree across all kinds of families, our special holiday rituals give us that deliciously satisfying sense of closeness, presence, and warmth that pave the way to the new year. Sometimes all the truth and beauty of the holidays can be overlooked by everything leading up to it.
Thanksgiving. In recent years, or perhaps has been happening for ages, I've noticed that thanksgiving has lost some of its closeness, presence, and warmth. Thanksgiving has gradually become a time for Christmas decorations and shopping. Most if not all major department stores offer black Friday deals.
For smaller businesses, there's something called Small Business Saturday, and every retailer has their own version of Cyber Monday, giving Tuesday, and so many more. Shops even open on Thanksgiving Day for Black Friday specials. Coupled into the biggest shopping weekend of the year, the sanctity of this historic day has been broken. If you peek back into history, you'll discover that the date of the holiday was moved by Roosevelt to extend the Christmas shopping season by one week.
How can we find meaning and importance in the beginning of the holiday season if Thanksgiving weekend is actually an economic requirement? Thanksgiving has lost its way in the American calendar. It has been stomped over and down-drawn by lines of intense, confrontational shoppers waiting at their early bird wristbands and by the latest gadget or clothing item. Inpatient and intolerant, we lash out at others if our expectations aren't met.
Please Google racist rant at Chicago Michaels to see what I mean. Perhaps the season of thankfulness is only a cover-up for our economic dependence on compulsive materialism. We want to be thankful, but here we are circling laps through the self-indulgent lands of capitalism running in inner marathon. We are too busy cultivating our outward thankfulness to realize what we are actually doing.
In snapping selfies during the holiday season, our narcissism spills over and edited images of ourselves. Here's me being thankful, or here's me with a 24-pound turkey I cooked. And again, here's me with my family. And of course, we must also include all the appropriate ornamental hashtags.
So blessed, thankful, 2016, ask the gravy, thankful day, count your blessings, turkey coma, et cetera. When families get together to share in their lives, wonderful results can occur. Generations collide and meaning is made. New truths are told and memories are wrapped up in hugs, laughter, and pensive moments before the dawn of a new year.
Magical moments come alive, and we suspend our disbelief without asking how or why. And when that magic returns to us, we smile at the echo of our parents' voices from many decades ago. If you are quiet and listen closely, you just might hear the bells on Santa's sleigh. Wonderful results can only occur if we intentionally shed at least some of the superficiality of the holiday.
We really should be tapping into the true meaning of the season. In order to authentically feel this simplicity, warmth, and presence of the holiday, we should ask ourselves, number one, why are we celebrating? Number two, what about this day or moment brings us joy? Number three, how can we grow even just a little bit from an interaction with a cousin or aunt or brother?
Number four, why are we going through such great lengths to produce a perfectly seasoned, succulent turkey? And number five, moreover, how can we extend our harvest of thankfulness year round and to others in this world? Quote, cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you and give thanks continuously, because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Bring Back Christmas by Allie Cornish of Everthrive.org The holidays, the year many of us traveled thousands of miles to visit with family, cook for what seems like 24 hours, and endure complex present opening rituals with polite thank yous for gifts we didn't really need.
Then we clean up in a resentful, zombie-like state. Everyone goes to bed exhausted, drained, and looking forward to, not Christmas. Does any of this seem familiar? If you're like me, you're left wondering, what happened to the warm, fuzzy holiday cheer?
Why must I go through all this trouble when all I wanted to do was spend meaningful time with my family? How did I have a meaningful conversation or connection with anyone? Am I just a Grinch? Or what?
I really don't like feeling like this. Getting family together the holidays shouldn't be a trouble or a burden. The phrase, worst of trouble, doesn't really work here. After all, spending meaningful time with family shouldn't be trouble at all.
Sometimes we try to hold on to past traditions so tightly that we miss other opportunities that would better suit us. If there doesn't seem to be a point to the current rituals, then Christmas really is a burden after all. What's the point of the holidays anyway? Last year, my husband, Josh, and I ended up staying at home in Fort Collins for the holidays.
This wasn't the initial intention. We had planned on traveling to Michigan to see his family. Unfortunately, a relative in Florida became ill, and Christmas in Michigan was cancelled. We were sad about this, but in the end, we didn't really mind this.
Plain tickets from Denver to Detroit were incredibly pricey at that time of year, and I, being four months pregnant, was dealing with Thalia in and out nausea. The thought of sitting through a potentially turbulent flight made me want to vomit anyway. Instead, we spent Christmas at home. We made waffles.
We watched Christmas movies, snuggled our dog, Chauncey, and enjoyed the day on the couch, relishing the slow sanctity of our little cocooned family. We thought about our baby, the future, and how far we come to get to our happy present. We called our families and shared holiday joy with them all. For dinner, we went to a local Thai restaurant where the service was exceptionally languid, but since slow was the theme of the day, we really didn't mind at all.
We really did have a simple, heartfelt, and natural Christmas. The only thing missing was the rest of our family. Christmas should be simple, heartfelt and natural. This year, we are traveling to see my family in the Chicago area for the holiday, and to everyone's excitement we're bringing seven-month-old everbaby with us.
He just started sitting up, exercising all his vocal cords and executing slow 360s on the carpet. He has a great will to explore, and he casts a sweet, soft smile at everyone he meets. I can't wait to see everbaby sitting before the Christmas tree adorned with twinkly bubbly lights and ornaments from my childhood. I can't wait to watch him take it all in.
I hope we can experience his many first slowly without rushing. I want to wrap our whole family up in a blanket and snuggle them and share our joy with grandparents and snuggles. This year, I'm going to bring back Christmas. I'm going to bring back Christmas for my son, and for sustainable future of holidays to come.
I'm going to decline participating in holiday traditions that leave me feeling exhausted, empty and overwhelmed. This year, I'm going to stop living outdated expectations of the holidays. This year, I'm going to support a simple, mindful, meaningful holiday where both connecting with loved ones and connecting with the spirit of Christmas is the focus. Will you join me in bringing the holidays back to the basics in whatever way that means to you?
Let's bring back Christmas. You just listened to the post titled The Meaning of the Season, and Bring Back Christmas, both by Allie Cornish of Everthrive.org, and I'll be right back with my commentary. I'm constantly thinking about how to optimize my health, what supplements to take, hours of sleep, what my diet should focus on. Superpower finally takes the guessing out of it.
One simple lab test covers over 100 biomarkers, and their app gives you a complete picture of your heart, liver, hormones, metabolism, even environmental toxins. Plus, it used to cost $499 right now, it's just $199, and head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership. Take it, Allie. I think most people struggle with this tension.
On the one hand, we want a nice and simple holiday with loved ones, but we also want to make it as special as possible for them, and that tends to add stress, obligations, and pressure to purchase, and participate in all the holiday craziness, and so on. It's fine if your love language is gift giving, but we just have to find where we personally find value versus just doing something because it's tradition. Like I relate to her second article I've talked about before, I'm not much of a planner, but the last few international trips I've been on, they were probably booked, maybe a month in advance, probably less. That's just how I am.
But like her experience, I found that the meaningful moments aren't ones that are necessarily perfectly scheduled and planned. I remember some of those last minute plans and decisions just as well, if not more so than the others, and not because it was hectic or crazy, but just simply because of the experience itself. And I don't know about you, but her accidental Christmas of waffles, movies, and a slow dinner? That actually sounds perfect to me.
So I'll thank you again to Allie for the reminder, thank you for being here, have a great rest of your day, and I'll be back tomorrow, where you're optimal life. I'll wait.