Celebrate Today- ceremonies and celebrations to make your days count

On Friday night, I had just returned from taking my brother to the airport. My parents were still here for one more night of our Thanksgiving holiday together, and we decided to pull out some of our Christmas decorations.  As everyone was sitting by the fire enjoying time together, I went down to the basement to find some of our Christmas boxes.  We are in the process of remodeling our basement so some of the boxes were difficult to reach as they have been moved around quite a bit over the last few months in order to get work done, but I was on a mission and was determined to track them down. I muscled my way to lift the heavy boxes and began to haul them upstairs.  At one point, I was flying up the stairs with a box in tow. As I turned around to head back down to get another box, I bumped hard into Jason who was also walking in the hallway.  I apologized to him, but then had to laugh at myself at the irony of the whole thing.  I had gotten so focused on getti...

For as long as I can remember, I have relished creating and taking opportunities to celebrate the people in my life (family, friends, sometimes unsuspecting strangers) through events both regular (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays) and less predictable (sidewalk chalk congratulations, hanging stockings in the woods for Christmas in July).  A few years ago, after we had sung some goofy song around the table for our blessing before the meal with another family who had joined us for dinner, my friend asked me if I had any of these blessings and or other celebrations and family traditions written down. I told her that I did not, but that I would see what I could put together for her.  That was 3 1/2 years ago, and I've been working on a draft ever since.   One author David B. Batchelder encourages family traditions as ways to “weave faith into the structures of daily life."   He notes that “as we pay attention to special times ...