Crafting Healthier Thanksgiving Traditions

Once upon a time the American Thanksgiving holiday was a source of emotional pain and angst for me. There was expected travel, food and drink completely outside my healthful guidelines, and awkward family interactions lacking my hopeful feelings of connection, love, support, understanding, and warmth.

By choice (theirs and ours) my husband, daughter, and I now spend Thanksgiving at home which was a big step for me toward more holiday happiness. However it wasn’t until I started crafting healthier Thanksgiving traditions for myself and my immediate family did I start looking forward to the holiday instead of feeling like family outcast loners while the rest of the country celebrated in familial harmony. (I know, pity-party fantasies are often over-exaggerated!)

The past couple of years I have decided that I want to leave the Thanksgiving weekend (Wednesday evening through Sunday) feeling better about my life than I entered it. This means for me: improved sleep, exercise, love, food, and energy.

This is how Thanksgiving Weekend 2014 shook out at The Goldens:

Wednesday evening

• went to 3 grocery stores after massaging two clients
• watched Modern Family Season 5 episodes in front of the fire
• made love with my husband (Why do I mention this? Because The Forty Beads saved & improved our marriage for which I am every grateful.)

Thursday

• slept in
• entirely cleaned out my home office – shelves, drawers, cabinets
• traded 25 books on Paperback Swap
• ran 9 miles
• my daughter and husband cooked most of our Thanksgiving meal (because it wasn’t vegan) and I made a nice, big Caesar salad
• watched Modern Family Season 5 episodes in front of the fire
• made love with my husband

Our meal: local shrimp from the docks, mashed potatoes with skins, homemade brown rice macaroni and goat cheddar cheese cassarole, homemade pumpkin pie (and some extra in custard bowls without crust), Caesar salad, sparkling cherry juice

Friday

• slept in
• hubby fetched a Christmas tree
• sent off books and an important package at the post office
• swam laps with my daughter
• ate leftovers & Hip Pea Power Bowl
• watched Modern Family Season 5 episodes in front of the fire
• cleaned out the entire kitchen, laundry room, and mud room
• made love with my husband

Saturday

• slept in
• cleaned out my clothes closet, the coat closet, linen closet, and storage closet
• visited a friend
• got all the Christmas decorations down from the attic
• did a bunch of Algebra with my daughter
• loaded the car to the brim with donations
• watched Modern Family Season 5 episodes in front of the fire
• helped my daughter clean out the underneath of her bed
• made love with my husband

Sunday

• slept in
• dropped off entire contents of car to 3 donation locations
• grocery shopped
• made another run to the post office – donated old prescription eye glasses & sun glasses to New Eyes & old running shoes through the MORE Foundation
• ran 9 miles
• potluck dinner with dear friends which was opportunity to make my favorite bean salad!

The only thing that I didn’t get done over the long weekend that I had hoped and planned is decorate my Christmas tree. I have discovered for myself that decorating the tree over Thanksgiving weekend is key to me feeling less anxious about the Christmas season. Having the tree decorated by December 1st helps me to ease any sense of pressure. I’ll get it done today and I look forward to watching Gone with the Wind while I do so….a tradition I started for myself and one I really look forward to now.

My house is clean, my man is happy, my daughter is caught up on her homeschooling, and I feel stronger, happier, and even more at peace in my home and life. The Thanksgiving weekend has become for me, by choice, a long weekend with my favorite people and a time to nest deeply with one weird meal thrown in.

As Winter settles in and we spend more time at home, I love for my house to be in tip-top order. During the Summer when we are outside so much, stuff accumulates inside the house and we really don’t notice because we’re not lingering inside so much. But once night starts to begin around at 5:30pm, we have many more hours inside. I can start to feel more acutely the stagnant energy created by corners and closets of chaos.

(Coco loves to be cozy too with a blanket and her babies.)

Rather than wait until Spring, it makes more sense to me to flush the excess, outgrown, and unwanted stuff at the start of Winter so that all those cozy hours spent indoors during the cold, dark season can be thoroughly enjoyed without feeling cramped, suffocated, or discombobulated.

Once my tree is decorated (we do love the lights all December long) all I have on my agenda is this:

• countdown to December 21st – the shortest day of the year – so that I can start tracking the nights as they get shorter, the days as they get longer, and Summer (my favorite season!) slowly returns,

• make big plans for my 45th birthday which lands on Christmas Day. My goal is to find a good, open Asian restaurant (Vietnamese veggie pho soup would be preferred!) and decide which movie or movies I want to see. So far Unbroken and Big Eyes are on the list,

• between Christmas and the new year, review what 2014 has brought, shed, and taught,

• then welcome in 2015 with the delightful, liberating feeling of an awaiting whole new year as clean as my house. And, yes, my new 2015 calendars are already in place!

This is how I not only survive what was once a sad holiday season for me but look forward to, enjoy, thrive, and improve all the way through. Crafting unique and meaningful traditions for myself and my immediate little family has been key to my happiness, joy, and balance.