To be upset over what you don’t have is to waste what you do have.
~ Ken S. Keyes Jr.
Oh, the wonderful, picture-perfect scenes that Christmas time brings: families hugging, enjoying special food and special times together. Everything is perfect. The children don’t squabble, couples are in sync, and any past disagreements are forgotten. This would be wonderful, but it is unfortunately not usually reality.
Inevitably, someone will do or say something hurtful or inappropriate, whether purposely or not. The children will not always get along. Old wounds may be reopened. That is the reality of getting a group of human beings with a history together.
Does that mean we shouldn’t get together? Does it mean we shouldn’t aim or hope for that picture-perfect holiday? Maybe your cousin will say something insensitive to you, or your uncle will corner you with a twenty minute discussion of something in which you have no interest. Maybe your child will throw a tantrum at the dinner table.
Thinking about how these things have ruined your Christmas will ruin your Christmas. Maybe your cousin didn’t mean what you think. Maybe she did. You can let it bring you down if you like, or you can forget about it and focus instead on the beauty of the decorations or the fact that everyone made the effort to be together. Maybe while you politely listen to your uncle, you notice your moody adolescent playing with his younger cousin. Maybe your red-faced, crying toddler is just over-tired and behaving like it.
The point that I’m taking way too long to make is that if we focus too much on how we wish things would be, we miss out on the beauty of what is.
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