Welcome to December's Happiness Project Blog Hop!
A little background on the hop for those of you that are new here. Each month Stephanie of Scrapworthylives.com chooses a theme for the hop based around themes in Gretchen Rubin’s book: The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Basically all themes from the book are applied to the overall theme of SCRAPBOOKING and how it leads to more HAPPINESS in our lives.
This month's theme from the book is pursuing KEEP A CONTENTED HEART.
In the book, the author, Gretchen, talks about part of keeping a contented heart is all about attitude. In other words, we choose if we want to be happy at any one moment.
I am doing my best this holiday season to apply that to my attitude towards celebrating the holidays. For the past four years, my holidays have been split between China and the States. We spend from Thanksgiving until a week or two before Christmas in China and the remaining week or two in The States visiting family. We have had a small fake tree in our home in China that we decorate wtih a few ornaments we've made and the rest purchased at Ikea. The rest of our ornaments are packed away in boxes in storage along with the rest of our beloved Christmas decor.
When we first moved here, I didn't mind it so much. It was novel. Sure, I missed our ornaments but it was only temporary and the experience we were having was great. Now that we are on our forth year, the novelty is lost and all I feel is the absence of so many of our beloved traditions. Not to mention the loss of experiencing the holiday season in its entirity from Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas, the Christmas parties, the carols coming from speakers other than my own iPod, the holiday art that comes home from school, secret santas, a decorated church, the giving tree at church, etc, etc, etc. I can't help feeling like the most important years of my kids' lives when they would enjoy these traditions while at home, are passing us by.
Ok, so now you know why I am sad, it is time to stop that train of thought and switch to how to change my attitude! Right?! What better way than to focus on the good, than make a scrapbook page of our favorite and most meaningful traditions.
By doing this I was able to see that we still carry on just about every one of our long standing traditions just in a different way and with very different timing. It may not be ideal, but it is nothing to sneeze at either. And the most important thing is the happy memories we are making for our children.
Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for Project Life Tuesday. I will be posting several more album pages I have completed in my attempt to finish my 2011 before I start fresh on 2012 in addition to my regular weekly photos. I hope to include my plans for keeping up with Project Life on the road as I will be traveling for the next month.
Below are the other participants on the blog hop, please hop around and visit them. Nuggets is next!
To see everything SCRAPBOOKING on my blog, click here.
Blog Hop Participants
Nihao, Cupcake! <--- You are HERE
Nuggets <--- Go HERE next!
Mine was posted at the last minute too! Tis the Season ;)
Posted by: Katie Scott | December 12, 2011 at 06:48
Thank you for sharing. I like that you're totally honest. There are lots of reasons this time of year can be hard or we're not as content as we'd like ... but you're right, we can try to change our attitude. And even just a little bit of trying goes a long way!
Posted by: Kimberly K. | December 12, 2011 at 10:41
Thanks for participating! I love you did the background on your layout.
Posted by: Stephanie Medley-Rath | December 12, 2011 at 11:23
Love how you turned the negative thoughts positive by focusing on what you do have. I can't decorate my house for the holidays this year because it's for sale. My RE agent said decorations aren't going to get the house sold - just avoid it. Ugh. That definitely does not help the attitude. So I'll take your advice and make a choice to focus on the positive! :)
Posted by: Tammy D | December 12, 2011 at 16:50
Wonderful post. I really like the story and the positive look on what has changed.
Posted by: MonicaB | December 13, 2011 at 03:35