Family/CommunicationReflectionDecember 23, 20151Underneath the Holiday Bustle…

I know I say this every year, so those of you who have been with me for awhile might be rolling your eyes about now. Nonethe­less: I love the holidays.

All the stuff I grew up with is charm­ing to me: twin­kling lights, presents under the tree, crack­ling fires, stock­ings hung on the chim­ney, old-fash­ioned Christ­mas car­ols, deli­cious food, see­ing peo­ple I love and don’t get to see often enough. I even most­ly like the things that oth­er peo­ple don’t like: corny Christ­mas movies, look­ing for just the right gift for someone.

Most of all though, I love what’s at the heart of all this, at least in my mind. The sense that life and love are aston­ish­ing gifts to be trea­sured every day.

Today is my last day of work for the year, and I’m already expand­ing into what I think of as hol­i­day grat­i­tude mode. I’m a pret­ty thank­ful per­son under ordi­nary cir­cum­stances, but dur­ing the hol­i­day I real­ly make the effort to con­scious­ly rec­og­nize all the gifts and joys in my life on a dai­ly basis.

At Pro­teus, we have year-end review and look for­ward con­ver­sa­tions with every­one on the team. I’m just about to have my final one for the year (I’ll be hav­ing a cou­ple more in Jan­u­ary), and feel­ing tremen­dous­ly appre­cia­tive of all the smart, good-heart­ed, com­mit­ted peo­ple I get to work with at my com­pa­ny. After that, I’m going to go and meet my hus­band at his first “beer event”; a tast­ing and brew­er appear­ance for his new brew­ery. And I’m feel­ing so proud of him, and so deeply grate­ful to be shar­ing my life with such a remark­ably kind, high-integri­ty, curi­ous, bril­liant, fun­ny, lov­ing, brave, hand­some man.

And as I’m writ­ing this, I’m sit­ting in my liv­ing room enjoy­ing our sparkling Christ­mas tree, each orna­ment con­nect­ed to a fond mem­o­ry. Grate­ful to have such a won­der­ful place to live, and the good health and men­tal capa­bil­i­ty to enjoy it.

I could go on and on. Feel­ing grate­ful ele­vates you, mak­ing your inter­ac­tion with every­thing and every­one around you more con­scious, hope­ful and lov­ing. When you are grate­ful, it feels won­der­ful and at the same time makes you a pos­i­tive force in the world.

So, my wish for you: May you appre­ci­ate your hol­i­days to the very fullest extent possible.…