Share Four Somethings Saturday: December

Well that was a year!

The last month has been a crazy one here, including my husband having a short hospital stay with COVID pneumonia and thus upending our end of November and the first half of December.

Fortunately, we are all home and now and enjoying an unconventional and grateful Christmas.

Loved

Probably the best thing that came out of the craziness of the last month has been the support of my family, church, friends, work, and online community. It was truly the little things like friends offering to do my laundry and pick out, deliver, and set up a Christmas tree.

I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity and prayers of so many people from across the country. I’m immensely grateful that my husband is home safe and healthy and I’ve told him he isn’t allowed to get sick again for years to come. 🙂

Read

I’ve been enjoying reading some collections of Christmas short stories (some of which I’m now realizing I have read before). I enjoyed doing more seasonal reading last year and found that this year was the same. While I didn’t do a lot of fall seasonal reading, I find myself wanting to return to old favorites in December. Fortunately, lots of my favorite authors have written Christmas novellas. While the stories might not be as well written as other efforts, I know the ending will be happy and that Christmas (both religious and secular, depending on the author) will be center stage.

Treasured

Because this has been such an unconventional Christmas in some ways, I’ve treasured small things like listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack in the car while I drive my kids to school. Introducing my kids to more grown-up Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and The Man Who Invented Christmas. There are a lot of usual favorite things that we didn’t get to do as a family this year, but I’m mostly so happy that we are all together and healthy that I’m trying not to focus on the things we missed out on.

Ahead

2022! No idea how we got here, I feel like just yesterday I was writing my first Share Something Saturday post in January 2020. It’s been a long road but I’m so pleased to be part of this community. While pretty much nothing went at all as I planned, there were definitely good moments. As I lean into another new year, I’m trying to keep expectations low, and yet I can’t help planning and looking forward. There is so much I still want to accomplish in the next year and, as usual, so many unknowns.

What’s ahead? I have no idea. But I have some plans in pencil, some dreams (both old and new), and lots of gratitude as I look into 2022.