That Time of Year

So for the past few months I've really been working on changing my attitude and the way I view things. I figured, hey I'm in a new place so why don't I work on a new me? I wouldn't call my former self a pessimist, but I certainly was no optimist! In fact, I would get annoyed when people would say "At least..." or "Look on the bright side..." or "There are people worse off..." But it's all true. I just wanted to feel like my problems were, for that moment, the worst. I wanted to be able to gripe and complain about how bad off it is for me, and basically have my own little pity party. Let's face it, I'm not a 100% changed woman, but I can honestly say [working on] changing my attitude has been one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. I've stopped looking at all of the burdens in my life and started looking at the blessings. It's not always easy, and some days my blessing is just being able to get out of bed in the morning but it has made my life so much better.

One of the areas I'm really working on is my attitude about the holidays. Ever since my mom died, I have hated them. Before she died, I loved holidays; I loved decorating the 3 Christmas trees we put up in our house and decorating and cooking the food for all the other holidays. I guess I started hating the holidays because it was just another reminder that she wasn't there, and it was just too painful. This holiday season has an added tough factor; it's the first set of holidays without my grandma.

Well me and my new attitude have really got to thinking, and we decided that this negative nancy/scrooge attitude is something my mom would not want for me. In a deeper sense, this is not what God wants for me. Instead of focusing on how much the holidays are going to suck without them here, I'm focusing on the blessings. There are the obvious blessings I get from being a Christian, and the blessings that I sometimes take for granted such as having food to be able to put on the table and a warm roof over my head.

I didn't get to be with my biological family for Thanksgiving (which was hard and didn't help my growing homesickness) but one of my best friends who is pretty much another sister to me came down so I wouldn't have to be alone. We didn't do anything special for Turkey Day really so I didn't get to really try out my new feelings toward the holidays. However, I am so ready to try them out this Christmas!!