I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas! I was able to celebrate Christmas several times last week – we celebrated mid-week with my son and his wife and my daughter in an early Christmas celebration since my son and his wife were heading to spend the actual holiday with her family this year, then my husband and daughter and I drove up to Idaho to celebrate Christmas early with his family, and then we came back home to host the actual Christmas eve and day with my parents and siblings at my house. We were able to do all our family traditions with each different group and we loved doing that.  It was really nice to have time with each family this year and I am really grateful we were able to do that.

I also loved having Christmas fall on a Sunday this year. We went to church during the day and my husband, who leads our church choir, led the choir in a wonderful Christmas musical program. It was beautiful music and it really helped focus the day on the true meaning of Christmas this year. I think I felt the Spirit stronger this Christmas than ever before and I really appreciated that.

I have to admit that waking up the day after Christmas there is always a little sense of sadness that the holiday we spent so much time preparing for and anticipating is over…Sure there is always some sense of relief that you successfully made it through all the parties and the cooking and the shopping and the gift wrapping, cause let’s face it – that can be exhausting! I can see why Santa feels like this:

But when that special day comes to an end each year I always wish it could have lasted just a little bit longer.

And it’s not a lot of fun to have to start taking down all the beautiful Christmas decorations. We took all of ours down today and the house just seems so empty and bare without having our great big tree up in the corner covered in sparkling crystals and lights….sigh….I will miss those decorations until Christmas comes next year.  So yeah, the day after Christmas is always a little bit of a bummer….as is the reality of the fact that after having eaten every goodie one could imagine over the last few weeks there is now a price to pay as one tries to zip up their skinny jeans…yikes!!

Well the best way I know to overcome the blues of any kind is to find something else to look forward to – to find something else that gets you excited and motivated for the days ahead.

“To succeed you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.”  – Tony Dorsett

And so tomorrow is a perfect day to sit down and plan some things to look forward to…some things that will motivate and inspire you and help you get excited to move forward past Christmas.  Tomorrow that is exactly what I plan to do 🙂

Have a happy day everyone!
~Amy Rees Anderson