We Need That Peaceful, Easy Feeling For The Holidays

It’s that peaceful, easy feeling.  I recently saw the Eagles at Austin City Limits.  They are one of my all time favorite bands and they were as good as I could have hoped.  This pic, taken on the Blanco River near Wimberly, Texas reminds of me of that song.  I have this and other photographs of the Blanco at www.douggraybealphotography.com in the gallery under Inspiring Places.

The holidays are upon us, now, so I suspect that peaceful easy feeling might be gone for a while.  Time seems to speed up, everyone gets busier and a little stressed out and we eat too much during the holidays.  But we must enjoy it because we do it every year.

We celebrated Halloween last night and it was great.  My oldest son was a whoopee cushion and my younger son was a vampire.  Our neighborhood goes all out for Halloween.  There are hundreds of kids so most people set up a lawn chairs in their driveways and hand out the candy as the little creatures come by.  The streets are full of parents, chaos and small humans hyped up on adrenaline and sugar – a dangerous cocktail of speed that eventually leads to a crash.  Some of the houses turn their yards in to detailed displays of horror.  My favorite was the house that had torches burning in the front yard, a floating head in a box hanging from a tree and zombies coming out of the ground…everywhere.  There must have been a dozen or more.

This is just the beginning.  Now we turn our attention to Thanksgiving where we start planning a feast, travelling to see family, Christmas shopping, holiday parties with friends, holiday parties at work, more Christmas shopping, taking time off at work to enjoy the holidays, then Christmas Eve, Christmas and then, oh yah, football games, New Year’s Eve and one final holiday.  If that isn’t enough, in m y family we also throw a birthday in there, too.

Rather than focus on getting stuff done this season, take your time to enjoy doing the stuff.  Regardless what we see and hear, the holidays aren’t about Thanksgiving and Christmas – it’s about all of it that leads to those days.  A good holiday season is one where we enjoy the build up to the holiday more than the holiday itself. So when it all seems a bit much, pull up this picture of the Blanco River and give yourself that peaceful, easy feeling and have a great holiday season.