Fearless
Passions

We missed the Macy’s Day Parade, but we witnessed first hand the parade of freighters. We didn’t share a meal with 30 of our closest relatives and friends, but we had a taste of tradition all the same. We’re taking our day of rest, instead of shopping for bargains through crowds of people. We are truly thankful for the life we’re allowed to live.

For some of you, I’m sure, the refrigerator is stuffed with leftovers and you swear you’ll be diligent on the diet between now and Christmas.

If you’re a black Friday kind of shopper, you’ve already stuffed your bargains into a closet and are ready for a nap, just in time to get up and prepare for the next holiday 30 days away. How many events are scheduled in your calendar?

A blessing and a curse of the cruising life is the time we spend away from family. Because of budgets and distance we don’t have the luxury of the parade of parties and gatherings, which of course can be a curse. Instead we find ways to honor the passage of holidays, but we also have more time for reflection and finding new friends who become our family in our ports of call. This of course is our blessing.

If I have one wish for you, it’d be for us to remember the reason for the celebration of Thanksgiving. A time of giving thanks for the harvest we’ve brought in and the abundance of the season. It’s a time of reflection, to remember what’s good in our lives.

We are blessed and I choose to look at a glass as half full. When we get so wrapped up in the commercial venues of the seasons to come, we can get lost and start to find fault and exhaustion through the month of December, thus forgetting what we’re celebrating.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or just the passage of a frenzied time, take a moment each day to remember your blessing and ask yourself, “Will today bring me blessings and how can I give blessings away?”

What’s your method of keeping sane through the holidays? Can you take the season of thanksgiving through to the new year?