Happy New Year!

As with every New Year, I am optimistic that the good will outweigh the bad this coming year.  With the holidays thankfully behind us for another ten months, hopefully I will soon find my bearings and once again feel grounded and strong.  The holidays tend to put me into a tailspin and finding my way back is a process, repeated every year for as long as I can remember.  There are “holiday people” and there are people like me, who cringe at the thought of Santa, Christmas music, and all the commercialism that comes with it.

This was my second Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year without my husband.  I have never been a “holiday lover” kind of person, and his death sixteen months ago has certainly not changed that one bit.  It seemed like I had just started to recover from the (soul crushing) holidays of last year when it all started up again this year.  The stores have had Christmas decorations on display this past year since the first week in October.  One full month before Halloween… Two full months before Thanksgiving… Three full months before Christmas!  Today I saw the remnants of the whole festive spectacle on sale at the store for 75% off.  I think they are sick of looking at it too.  Unfortunately, it’s all been replaced with Valentine’s Day necessities.  If there’s a holiday worse than Valentine’s Day, I’m not familiar with it.  Ugh.

Holidays aside, I truly am looking forward to this new year and remain hopeful that it will bring new and positive changes in my life.  I am far too old and experienced to ever title a paper, “New Year’s Resolutions”, and just the thought of it makes me giggle a little.  But I do have a goal to do my best in keeping up weekly with my new blog that my son-in-law so kindly set up for me.  I think it’s a good project, and a way of dipping my toes into my new life.  I wish anyone who reads this a wonderful 2016 and may it be your best year ever!!