Bonfires of the Past

Remembering old traditions and pondering new ones

Ann Litts published a post this morning that got me thinking. (The Post-Christmas-Surprise-Bonus-Gift) It made me think about how much gratitude I include in holiday celebrations. I realized that my holiday rituals have been more about dumping the past than expressing gratitude. I am now considering changing that.

A hundred years ago when I was in my twenties I had a delightful New Year’s tradition. Every Christmas I would buy myself one of those big, fat five-subject spiral notebooks. On New Year’s Day I would begin writing in that notebook. It was my journal for the new year.

The next Christmas I would buy myself another big, fat five-subject spiral notebook and it would be my journal for the following year. Every New Year’s Eve I would be sure to make the time to write my final entry of the year. It was always a long entry full of memories of the year ending.

Then on New Year’s Day I would make my first entry in the new notebook and it would usually be full of aspirations and goals and optimism for the new year being better than the one just ended. Thinking back on that I now realize that there was not a whole lot of gratitude expressed in the last and first entries of those long ago journals.

As my thirties approached I had a pile of seven or eight or nine of those big, fat five-subject spiral notebooks, all filled with writing. It was a lot of journaling. But finally one year I did not buy myself a new notebook at Christmas. On New Year’s Eve I built a little bonfire (“little bonfire” might be an oxymoron or maybe it’s all just relative, I don’t know). Anyway, I threw every one of those fat notebook journals into the bonfire. And I have never again kept a journal in the many decades since then.

I remember going out the next morning on New Year’s Day to look at the blackened fire pit filled with ash. Amidst all the ash were several blackened metal spirals…. with nothing attached to them. That was a pretty powerful moment for me. But I’m not sure that I truly expressed gratitude for that experience. That was so long ago; long before I learned of the power of gratitude.

So anyway, Ann Litts talked about writing thank you notes to everyone who had gifted her or sent holiday greetings to her. Man, I can’t remember the last time I wrote and sent a thank you card. Seriously, I can’t remember.

Other than spending a day with my lovely two granddaughters I really don’t even celebrate Christmas at all anymore and haven’t for years. All my friends and relatives know that so I didn’t get a single Christmas card or gift. There is no one to send a thank you card to. And that old fart Santa Claus didn’t bring me a single thing that was on that list I sent him.

And I haven’t celebrated New Year’s Eve in many years either. I’m always fast asleep before the ball drops. Am I a wet blanket, or what?

Well, that is changing right this minute. I am hereby writing my first thank you note in a long time….

I would like to thank everyone at Medium; both the readers and writers and also the staff. I would like to sincerely thank all of my followers and everyone who has read my stories and blabberings. I would like to thank everyone who clapped for me. And I would especially like to thank all those writers whose writing I have enjoyed and been inspired by. (Way, way, way too many to list.)

This is my third New Year’s Eve on Medium but this is my first thank you note. My New Year’s resolution is that it won’t be my last.

Ahhh…. that felt good. I’m starting to feel better about 2018 already.

Happy New Year everyone! And THANK YOU!