The Joy of Celebrations

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about joy and how ME/CFS has helped me find more joy in everyday things.  I planned to kick off a series of posts about things that bring me joy, and I wrote The Joy of the Outdoors and The Joy of Friendship, but then the project sort of fell by the wayside.

All of our Halloween fun yesterday made me realize that I haven't written about celebrations, which I think are a vital element of joy in any life!

I came by my love of celebration from my mother.  When I was a kid, we celebrated everything, big and small, and I loved the atmosphere of joy and festivity.  My mom was, and still is, a major party animal, so I learned from the best!  When I had kids, I knew I wanted to do the same thing for them.  My kids love our traditions of celebration, and now that we are dealing with chronic illness, they are even more important, a way of injecting joy and fun into our lives, even (especially) when things feel lonely and dismal.

Of course, we celebrate the big holidays, though we've had to scale back a bit since CFS.  We now focus on certain elements of each holiday that are the most important to us - at Christmas, that's decorating our tree together and getting together with our oldest friends for a cookie decorating/grinch watching party (we now buy premade cookie dough!).  On Halloween, our whole family gets dressed up, often with a group theme, and goes around the neighborhood trick-or-treating (I usually just hit the two nearby cul-de-sacs).  We celebrate New Year's Eve at 8 pm since the kids can't stay up late (and we used to celebrate with their grandma who had Parkinson's and also couldn't stay up late), but they love our traditions, with sparkling juice, lots of noisy confetti poppers, and caps thrown all over the driveway.

We celebrate the little holidays, too.  We always decorate the house - over the years, we've collected themed window stickers, decorations, and holiday-themed projects the kids made when they were little.  For Valentine's Day, we give the kids little treats in the morning, hang hearts with messages written on them from their door frames while they sleep, and celebrate with a simple chocolate fondue in the evening, dipping in chunks of fruit, pretzels, and graham crackers.  One year, I even put little edible groundhogs into the kids' oatmeal for Groundhog Day!

We don't need a holiday for an excuse to celebrate.  Once or twice a year, I make our favorite enchiladas and we have Mexican Night, with a colorful serape on the table and a special orange-mango fizzy drink.  We celebrate the start of summer by going with friends to play in a creek after school lets out.  And, of course, there is always a party when we visit their grandma (my mom)!

If Jamie has had a bad week (or month) and has been stuck at home for a while, I surprise him with movies from the library or a favorite treat from the local ice cream dairy or bakery.  Celebrations can be incorporated into everyday life to add an extra jolt of joy to even our restricted lives.

So, next time you are having a bad day or week or month, find a reason to celebrate and insert some extra joy into your life! 

What are your favorite ways to celebrate?