Happy Holidays Chickadee! With just three more days till Christmas, I wanted to spend today talking about the little things.
It can be easy to know happiness and see beauty in the big things of our lives- holidays, art, famous songs, and even great landscapes and mountain ranges. But just as the saying goes, it is important that we don’t lose sight of the tree in spite of the forest.
Yes, there are three days till Christmas and probably only two days until a Christmas Eve festivity, but don’t lose sight of the beauty and happiness available to you right now.
The holidays can be a great big adventure. With decorations and to-do lists, they fill our days and weeks. Not only in preparation but in anticipation.
But we human beings are blessed. For happiness, adventure, joy, and beauty can be discovered not only the in the great things but in the small moments too.
For example:
Yesterday I took a moment to watch my cat, Oliver. Yes, he’s the same one from yesterday’s post about the Winter Solstice. And yes, he’s still teaching me about life.
I watched him outwit a Christmas present.
Every year my aunt not only sends my family presents but our pets as well. However, as an animal lover and pet owner herself, she takes extra precautions. The cat’s gifts are placed in a plastic bag, wrapped in tissue paper, and then wrapped with Christmas wrapping paper. All in an effort to disguise the sent of goodies and catnip.
Upon receiving our Christmas gifts, I laid them out around the tree (which actually got decorated this year) thinking that Oliver and Thomas would respect the presents just as they had respected the ornaments. No-longer kittens they have, for the most part, gotten better about leaving non-kitten toys alone.
Except it wasn’t long before Oliver was attacking a present, and not just any present but his. My mom called me over into the living room and we watched as our hunter cat used his paw and body weight to pin down the present while he bit the paper into small pieces.
The Small Things:
The longer I live the more I reaffirm and relearn the important truth that life is what we make of it. That while the outside world will influence our lives, we always have a choice.
This year not only will I carry the memory of Christmas, which I anticipate will be wonderful, I will also carry with me a memory of Oliver outwitting a Christmas present. This moment, this memory cannot be recreated.
Every memory and moment that we hold within our minds and hearts is there because we chose to be present. We chose to take a moment and look, feel, and interact with life.
Oliver’s sheer joy at having something to play with shared joy with my mom and myself, because we stopped what we were doing to enjoy the little moment. And like the stinker bug that he is, Oliver stopped ripping the present as soon as I got the camera out, isn’t that just like a cat?
My message for you today is to not neglect the potential in this moment for joy. Rather, embrace what’s around you right now. Smile and laugh, be merry… and have a very Merry Christmas!