December is a time of many holidays but not always a happy time for everyone.
For a long time, I had a hard time with the whole month of December.
In my teen years, my beloved grandfather passed on December 7, leaving a huge hole in my heart. The day of his passing I called my grandmother and she asked that I go visit grandpa as he had been asking for me. I couldn’t go see him before he passed.
In my early 20s my brother was shot and was in the ICU for almost a month. He died on December 28. In 2001, my grandmother, who was a second mother to me, passed away on December 16. While we talked on the phone and wrote handwritten letters to each other often, I had not seen her in a couple of years. That Christmas I was finally bringing home my fiance to meet her and we were both very excited. I am so saddened that neither my husband, nor my grandma met each other.
As you can imagine I can empathize with the blues that the holidays bring to so many people.
It was not until I had kids that I started to truly enjoy Christmas again. The innocence and joy in their eyes for the anticipated celebration was the best gift. Even though my parents, brothers and extend family where hundreds of miles away and I missed them, the girls brought a new sense of joy around the holidays. I was grateful to have the gift of giving joy to another human and I soon started to realize that the more joy I brought to others, the happier I felt.
So while I still miss my grandparents and the scar of loosing my brother so tragically is still there, I choose to focus on bringing joy to others. Not only the people I love most, but strangers in random acts of kindness. The beautiful thing about bringing joy to others is that it has a snowball effect. When you do something nice for someone else, they feel compelled to pay it forward and it creates a beautiful chain reaction of joy and happiness around the world.
It is not a coincidence that in December we also celebrate World Kindness Day.
On this holiday season, whether you are with family or not, whether this time of the year up until today is a happy time or not, together we can bring joy and happiness to someone else and I promise you the feeling is AMAZING.
So let’s do it together! If you know someone that could use a little cheering, let us know and we will send them a Holiday Cheer box!
It’s easy as 1, 2, 3.
1. Email us the complete name and exact address of the person you are nominating.
2. Briefly share with us why you are nominating this person and how do you think we can bring Cheer to them
3. Include a personal note to that person to go with the Holiday Cheer box. We will included it with your name.
We will choose 20 Holiday Cheer recipients and will let you know if your nominee is selected.
I wholeheartedly encourage you to think of something you can do to help bring joy to others this holiday season and share with us that experience.
From our small but mighty team at West Compass Insurance we wish you KINDNESS, JOY AND MUCH HEALTH.