Keeping Up Our Spirits Through The Holidays

Keeping Up Our Spirits Through The Holidays

When I was just a little girl growing up in the 1950's...this was my very favorite time of the year. 

I just loved fall in general and I loved the outdoors and the woods and the falling leaves.  I looked forward to carving our jack o lanterns and going trick or treating.  And then going into November and the big Thanksgiving feast and our home would be so full of extended family.  And then on into December when mom would start her massive candy making and then awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus as we watched Kukla, Fran and Ollie keep us posted on just where Santa was on Christmas Eve.  Oh my goodness, what a joyous time of year this was...when I was just a little girl.

I can remember so many times, daddy and mom taking us to Fort Massac in the fall, to play on the swings and run through the leaves.  I'd always end up wagging some of my treasures from nature home. I had a passion even way back then, for unique rocks and leaves shaped like hearts and sticks or twigs with just a certain twirl or braid or shape.
And mom and daddy would rake the leaves at our house and make big piles and we were allowed to play in them until daddy was ready to burn them...and then we could stand way back and watch the big bonfire of leaves burning and oh my goodness...the smell of burning leaves in the fall. 

And then I grew into a young woman and had my own storybook life in LaLa Land and fall was still very special.  Geezer has always been an avid trophy buck hunter.  So fall was always a time of scouting for deer signs and hanging deer stands and often the kids and I would go along to scout. And then came Halloween and the fun of carving jack o lanterns and trick or treating with our own kids and then into November where we still had the big Thanksgiving feast...except now it was getting a little more complicated...because both sets of grandparents wanted the grandkids at their homes on the holidays, but I was a young mom and wanted to cook my own Thanksgiving feast.  So for days, we had food running out of our ears.
Geezer and the kids would always get up on Thanksgiving morning to the aroma of turkey baking and scrumptious dressing and pies out the wazoo...but OUR feast was for snacking because we had to have lunch with one set of grandparents and supper with the other.  But oh what a day it was.

And Christmas was the same way.  Way too many meals and way too many toys...but oh the memories.

Now days, the holidays have taken on a new turn for me.  With mom and daddy gone and geezer's dad gone and his mom so feeble she can't hardly get around and deaf to boot...it just makes things kinda hard. 

I was reading about keeping up our spirits and it said to keep up our spirits is to 'stay positive and hopeful in spite of difficult situations'.  It said we should always keep our spirits high and our selves higher and that we should make our hearts happy and let that happiness reflect in all we do. 

Not too many people have it really good these days...you know it?   Maybe politicians...because they're stealing us all blind and padding their pockets right and left and it's obvious not a one of them has a conscience...or a brain for that matter. 

But for the average person...we all carry our own burdens. 

The economy is the pits.  So many are without good jobs and many MANY without jobs at all.  It seems like there's so much sickness lately and relationships and long term marriages are breaking up right and left.

Life and all of it's problems can just get overwhelming sometimes.  

One of my little Elf Help Books is titled "Keeping Up Your Spirits Therapy" and it says we must live in the moment.  Because if we focus on the past or the future we could miss many of the joys and blessings of today. 

 

I just love talking about life in my day.  It was such a simpler time.  Oh we had worries, even as kids and our parents had worries like parents do today...just not the same worries.  But the thing we had back then...that seems to be a thing of the past...is priorities.  The families of the 1950's and 60's had a priority list out of this world. 

I love talking to you each day about this and that and whatever seems to be on my mind at the time.  But what I really love to do....is to set hearts yearning for innocent pleasures and simpler times...

Peace and love and thanks so SO much...for stopping by.  I love you all gobs!