DAILY GRATITUDE WRINKLES

 

As I celebrate another birthday…

and more wrinkles on my face I see..

I’m grateful how each wrinkle brings me a little closer

to the person I was meant to be.

NEWER EVERY DAY

 

On my birthday I once again turn to Emily Dickinson

I love the things she has to say…

Like how:

We turn not older with each year…

but newer every day.

MY BIRTHDAY

 

I have always been grateful for all the blessings I’ve received…

One is having a birthday that falls on New Year’s Eve.

When I was young I was astonished to think everyone on Earth

came together with friends and family just to celebrate my birth. 

How perfect strangers would on this night meet in places like Time’s Square

to watch a ball drop, kiss each other…then throw confetti in the air.

Of course I now know that kind of thinking was a bit naive… 

because all that laughter and partying comes at the end of New Year’s Eve.

Yes, all those people who gather…all those strangers…all my friends.

are not happy it’s my birthday….they are happy when it ends.

Still when it comes to my birthday …when about a gift Deborah inquires.

My answer is the same each year…I have everything I desire.

I have a wife whom I love and who will love me till the end…

I was blessed to have been lucky to marry by best friend.

I have children and grandchildren who now that I’m old and grayed

have grown into beautiful people…despite the mistakes I’ve made.

This year I have a great-granddaughter…added to our family mix

A whole new audience waiting…for all my dad jokes and magic tricks.

Yes, even though I have friends and family in every color the rainbow can beget…

I was blessed this year…to add another shade of Violet.

I have been very lucky…truly blessed indeed

for life has set before me…everything I’ll ever need.

That’s why when Deborah asks…I can be so nonchalant.

What can I possibly need when I have everything I want?

My birthday serves as a new beginning…a time each year to realize

that everything I will ever need is right before my eyes.

I imagine there are many people who already know this…at least that’s what I believe

Perhaps that’s why everyone celebrates my birthday…which falls on New Years Eve.

IN EACH OTHER'S ARMS

 

I look forward to the day I can be grateful…

that people across every nation

have together as one planet

arrived at this beautiful realization…

That we belong in the arms of one another…

not taking up arms against each other.

A WORLD OF LOVE

 

May we be blessed to one day live in a world

Where love…not hate…is expanding

A world where our prejudices will stand aside

in the name of love and understanding.

WHAT IFS

 

As the new year approaches it feels like our country…our world

is teetering on the edge of a cliff

as we wonder what has happened to acceptance, to compassion,

to generosity and love…we are confronted with a lot of what ifs.

What if instead of fearing those we see as different…

we got to know them…personally?

We would find we have much in common….and they were never our enemy.

What if in our hearts we understand we are all branches of the same family tree?

then our arms would open willingly in acceptance…despite the differences we see?

What if we sat and walked and talked together…

shared our joy divided our sorrow and tears?

We would find when we truly listened to one another…there is nothing we need fear.

If understanding removed our fear there would be no-one to hate 

and nothing to hate for

no prejudice, no need for bullets, no more bombs or war.

What if we could see everyone as beautiful…as our sister and our brother?

What if we finally understood how we complement each other..

What if we stopped looking at the differences…in our sex, who we love…

in the color of our skin? 

Animosity, our prejudice and our hatred would stop

and love and compassion would begin.

What if we realized the way we’ve look at each other all these years

has been petty, narrow-minded and small

And what if we begin to understand our wonderful variety and diversity…

is what makes us beautiful after all.

Which leads to the bigger question:

What if we do nothing?  What if we don’t change?

What if we let our hatred eventually push us over that cliff…

In the moments we are falling to our doom…

It will be too late to wonder how this happened

to late then…to ask ourselves what if.

DAILY GRATITUDE FAMILY

 

I am grateful this holiday season…

or for any time spent in the arms of my family…

So when they say upon leaving…”See you soon.”

I can answer…not soon enough for me.

WELCOME

 

I wish we were all blessed…

for what a wonderful world this would be…

If our first words to everyone we meet

are…Welcome to our family.

MORNING SONG

 

There is this wonderful natural phenomenon…

that unfortunately never lasts too long…

performed by the early birds…it’s called the morning song.

It’s begun by the first bird who sees the sunlight …from his nest high in the trees.

urging him to sing…then his voice is carried on the breeze.

Once the soloist has led the way…other birds begin to sing along…

and the symphony they’re composing…becomes their morning song.

 

But it’s winter in the mountains…winters can be cold and long…

and the birds that haven’t left for warmer climes

don’t often sing a morning song.

So we put fresh bird seed in the feeders…

from the porch where they are hung…

where we can watch the birds and remember 

old morning songs that they have sung. 

There is this wonderful phenomenon with our family at Christmas…

that unfortunately never lasts too long

It’s when our family comes together…to sing our morning song.

Some of our family shows up…and initiates the song.

Then, when other family members arrive, they begin to sing along.

And before you know it all the voices blend together

the harmony is strong…

and the symphony we compose…becomes our morning song.

Once the celebration is over..and goodbye and I love you are our last words

we relish the moments we just shared…and the morning song’s we heard.

When the house is quiet again…we remember those morning songs…

and we will smile in the silence…and with those echoes…sing along.

And just as we await the birds of spring…

we look forward to the next time our family comes along

to unite our voices…and create new verses

to our family’s morning song.

DAILY GRATITUDE TRADITIONS

 

I am grateful for the family traditions 

that have been passed down to me

and happy to do my part 

by passing them down to each member of my family.

GUSTAV MAHLER ON TRADITIONS

 

This blessing comes from composer Gustav Mahler

Who has a wonderful definition…

of something important to all of us…

That would be our family traditions….

It is a definition meant to encourage and inspire:

Tradition is not the worship of the ashes…

but the preservation of the fire.

OUR FLEXIBLE CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

 

We love traditions…they mean a lot to our blended family…

but being blended also means our traditions need some flexibility.

 

Years ago when we first blended…new Christmas traditions were conceived…

our children opted for pizza…and we’d celebrate on Christmas Eve.

Over the years as our children and family have grown…moved away,

because they are traditions we don’t want to forget

we do our best to have our Christmas as close to Christmas as we can get.

And those years some family can’t be present in the room…

we face-time on the phone…or better yet…we do a Christmas Zoom.

This year being in NC we modified our tradition…being no where near a Dominoes…

If we couldn’t have our pizza delivered…we opted for Digoirno’s

This year our of gift-giving tradition changed as we all conceded 

coming together at our cabin was the only gift we needed.

But since there was a new member of our family 

who knows nothing about traditions yet

many of us threw caution to the wind and bought gifts for Violet.

We played our traditional game…with our traditional door prizes

but this year the game came with a number of surprises.

The biggest one was a special door prize that came with fame and glory

won by Aden…a miniature lamp like the one in A Christmas Story. 

It’s a new tradition this Christmas that as a family we were happy to begin it…

Aden gets to keep this lamp until next Christmas…when someone else will win it.

We also had a second celebrations this year…another tradition to amend

so Taylor who worked on Christmas Eve…on the 26th could attend!

This is a sampling of our family’s traditions…that have changed as we have grown

which are similar, I’m sure, to family traditions of your own…

Because when it comes to our traditions…in life there are no parallels…

They are the place our love and contentment reside…

and our joy and happiness dwell.