Holiday Permission Slip
Happy Holidays, in advance Dear Readers. In case you need one, I am giving you this permission, and you can print it out and show it to anyone who has the audacity or maybe the good sense to ask:
You have my permission to enjoy yourself completely, this Holiday Season. You have my permission to spend your Holiday Season with the people you love best, whether they’re your family or best friends, or some of each. You have my permission to stay up all night with good friends, howling at the moon, if that floats your boat. You also have my permission, (if you really ever needed permission) to simply go off fishing for the Holidays, all on your own.
Way too many people allow themselves to have their Holiday Season actions dictated by the media. A holiday is what you make it, and any or every day can be a holiday.
Consider how many advertisements you’ve seen for Black Friday Sales, and how many Christmas store catalogs you’ve received in your mail box already.
Are we really going to spend an inordinant amount of money and time shopping for gifts until we’re so depleted that being with the loved ones for whom we bought those gifts is not a pleasure?
Can’t you remember times when all you had next to you was a cooler of snacks/drinks, good friends/family, and a sunrise/set?
What is it that really makes holidays great? There are as many answers to that, as there are people in the world, because we all have our favorite holiday memories, and each one is different. On the other hand, what is at the core of each one?
That question deserves a better answer than I can give. I can only tell you where to look. Look to Neuro-Lingistic experts to help you understand how we remember things and events. They will tell you that the most memorable moments of our lives are the ones that have been attached to powerful emotions, and that we can make ourselves remember moments, by taking some simple steps.
We take a full moment or five to look around us, smell, hear and taste everything we can, then close our eyes, and picture it exactly as it is, for another full minute.
In the moments that have stuck in my mind, I know that they’ve stuck because I was unthinkingly doing exactly that. I was with some of the best people I’ve ever known, watching a sunset, noticing some bats, feeling the cold threw the blanket, and sipping something warm, and smelling it and the clean eve. air off Lake Tahoe, and then there came the fireworks. Loud and bright. I was using every sense known to Mankind, and really taking the time to enjoy each one, as I sat next to my folks, my hubby and kid on that patio that July 4.
So what if it wasn’t that long ago. I know that it’ll be just as clear in my mind, 80 years from now as it is Today. It’ll certainly be a lot sharper in my head than a lot of other holiday moments I’ve lived thru. A lot of holiday moments get quite blurry in my mind’s eye, and I don’t even drink. I simply don’t always remember to slow down and take in the really great moments.
I guess that makes me normal.
So, while you have my permission to have a really great time, I perscribe that you also make it “memorable”. I perscribe that you take at least 1 day or night out of every 3 or 4 to slow down, and be sure that you’re really where you want to be, and with the people with whom you really want to share the experience, and that you do the extra-ordinary: Stop to smell the roses.