Let’s Celebrate!

  This week is a good week to celebrate.  Our tulips are finally blooming, the trees are starting to leaf out, May 4 was Star Wars day – May the Fourth Be With You! – May 5 was Cinco de Mayo, and today is Mother’s Day.  It seems like there is something for just about everyone this week.

In honour of Cinco de Mayo, I made tacos for supper, and for Mother’s Day we are having my mom over for dinner and I made and decorated a cake for her.  (She hasn’t seen it yet or I would show you what it looks like.)

A priest we knew used to wish a happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and all those who are mother-like.  I love that.  We don’t have kids, but we do have beautiful godchildren, and it means the world to me every year when one of our goddaughters texts me to wish me a happy Mother’s Day and tells me she loves me.  Especially knowing that she does it on her own, without being told to.  I still can’t believe that she and her brother are old enough to text me, but that is another story.

Where we live, we can see planes taking off from and coming in to the airport.  We don’t live all that close to the airport, but we are high enough up and fortunate not to have tall buildings in front of us.  They come in and take off all day long.  Some are fast, some are slow, some are big, some are small.

I’m usually too distracted or too busy to actually do it, but I think it would be fun to think about where the people on the planes are going or where they are coming from.  Are they coming home from a long flight?  Are they stopping by on their way to their actual destination?  Maybe they are going to a tropical island for a well-deserved vacation. Or maybe they have been or are on their way to visit someone they love who is sick or to celebrate the life of someone who has passed away.

I think of those sad things and then move on to a happier story for them.  Both because it’s sad to think about and because I don’t want those things for anyone.  The sad events are part of life, but if I was going to create stories imagining why people are travelling on the planes I would create happy things. Things that are more exciting than regular life.

Maybe they are spies on a mission.  Maybe they are on their way to find a treasure or to go on safari.  Many will go to places I have never been and have great adventures.  Seeing Antarctica, shopping at a European Christmas market… Because the stories are from my imagination, the possibilities may actually be endless.

But at some point, I have to get my head out of the clouds, come back to earth, and look around at my own regular life.  It would be easy to get caught up in the excitement of the stories I have created and be disappointed in the ordinariness of my life.  (Yes, that is a word.  I looked it up to see if it was my own creation or not.  Unfortunately, someone else thought of it first.)  The house cleaning, the grocery shopping, paying the bills… But the little things are where we find the most things to celebrate.  We don’t have to have a special occasion in order to celebrate.  Special occasions happen once in a while.  That’s why they are special. Let’s face it, there are more little things than big things.

No, I’m not celebrating paying the bills.  But I might celebrate that I can pay the bills. Or maybe I celebrate that my magazine came in the mail today or that it is a sunny day after many cloudy days.  Do we celebrate the little things?  Once, I wanted an attachment for my mixer that would sift for me.  Because it was an attachment for my beloved mixer, it was expensive. Could I really justify spending that much money on it?  It would make life so much easier when I make icing for my cakes, but it was so much money.  Then I remembered.  I had a gift card!  For a store that sells my mixer!  So, I got to work looking to see if they also sell that attachment.  They did!  I used that gift card and every time I use that attachment to sift flour or icing sugar – saving me so much time and probably even more patience – I celebrate it and say it’s the best $4.36 I have ever spent.

I think we should celebrate whenever we can.  We all need hope and joy in our lives.  Celebrating gives us both.  Hope that there are good things around us, and joy in whatever we are celebrating.  Celebrating doesn’t have to be a big party or a dinner out.  I think celebrating can be as simple as being happy about something, drinking out of a special glass, or using the special occasion china on a regular day.

As I write this, I’m celebrating the chocolate that I’m enjoying while I write and I’m excited about the icing I made this morning for that Mother’s Day cake and for the decorating I will do tomorrow.  I can’t wait to see how it turns out and I hope that my mom will love it.

What will you celebrate today?