How to make any day special
Around Christmas and New Year, there is usually a frenzied buying bonanza of gifts for friends and family, and catching up with people you haven’t seen for a long time. A friend of mine who spent Christmas on their own recently remarked to me, that any day can be special and that they enjoyed Christmas Day on their own. We discussed how feelings about what makes a day special are often linked more to cultural and family expectations than to individual enjoyment. While these expectations of sharing enrich our lives, they can also stress our lives. And so it set me thinking about how I can enlarge my sense of days being special, perhaps even giving up putting a time stamp on what days should be special.
Somewhere, sometime recently, I handwrote out a simple formula for making any day special, and this is what I would like to share with you at the beginning of 2008.
1. Don’t worry about the date
2. Don’t worry about being late
3. Give gifts less, according to social necessity, more according to inner guidance
4. A gift does not need to be material. It can be a warm smile, a kind word, a comforting hug, a soft apology, a cup of tea shared, a job done without being asked and a spontaneous phone call or email to say hi.
Kindest regards
Frances