One of my relatives was visiting recently. He has little children which made me think of the magic that surrounded the Christmas season when our kids were tiny.
I asked him,

“So is Christmas just a blast around your house since your girls are still so young?”

His response made me sad.

“Well,” he said with a frown. “We’re pretty broke….” and his tone spiraled downward before catching himself and promising that someday things would be better.

This made me ask myself, “Am I more aware of what’s broke, or of what’s a blessing?”

We can’t control what happens to us, but we always have the power to control our focus and the meaning we give to events. We can control our tone of voice, our posture, our countenance.

When we choose to embrace optimism, we make our selves and everyone around us happier.

Step 1: Focus on Ways you are Blessed, not Broke.

When you are a middle-class American, your definition of “broke” still has you wealthier than 80% of the world’s population.  Focus on gratitude.

Gratitude makes the season bright.

When I was growing up, we sang a little hymn that said to “count your blessings, name them one by one…” It’s an oldie, but still an empowering little diddy to get stuck in your head.

Step 2:  Give your Full Presence

When we are overly-engulfed in the busy-ness, we cheat everybody out of the best gift of all – our presence.

Try this: the next time a loved one is talking to you and you’re halfway tuned out, wake up!  Imagine that it’s 10 years from now and you’d give anything to have this moment back. Then take it all in.

Look in their beautiful young eyes, capture their countenance, listen fully. Breathe life into their moment by giving your love and joy.  It’s the little moments that make a life memorable.

Step 3. Let Go of Comparisons

It will always be a mistake to compare our scarcity to other people’s perceived abundance. Why let other people (or the media) define what creates a great holiday season for us?

My children certainly know all about visiting their friends’ homes with tons of gifts under the tree when our tree is nearly bare. But they also know the joy of giving to others and laughing really, really hard when we are all together. I’ll take giving and laughter over lots more stuff any day.

The beauty is, we get to create our own happiness rules. It’s interesting to me that the more grateful our kids have been over the years, the more our “abundance” as a family has multiplied.

So today, I wish you a good tidings of great joy.Besides, if the Savior really was born this day, than all the rest is small stuff.

Merry Christmas!