I'm pretty sure we can all agree: 2020 has been A. YEAR.
You can hardly go on Facebook or Instagram without being bombarded with entertaining memes and creative tweets reiterating just how full-on cray cray these last eight months have been.
While I’ve done my fair share of complaining about the inconveniences and losses of this past calendar year and resorted to humor and sarcasm to get me through the lows, I have to say that there have been some pretty amazing highs.
Initially, back in March, I went through all the stages that so many people experienced complete with the “stay in my pajamas all day and watch Netflix” phase, the “bake things like I’m a pioneer” phase and the “OMG will this ever end?” phase. (That last one lasted significantly longer than the others).
But after a while, it became very evident that we were looking at months ahead of this new “normal”.
I looked ahead to the summer months and saw disappointment upon disappointment with their lack of birthday parties, trips to the pool and family reunions. I knew I had to do something to offset the loss of all the fun activities that we usually jam-packed into our lives.
It started simple — we planned a birthday party for our dogs
I realize that some people do this every year, but we went all out. We bought puppy ice cream and made a cake for the humans. We wore birthday hats and dressed up. We played “Dogopoly” (dog-themed Monopoly) and had party games complete with an obstacle course for each puppy and a timed race with treats at the end. It was funny and random and, actually, pretty magical.
At the end of that day of that random dog party, my 9-year-old son lay in bed and stated, “That was the best day ever.”
And that simple statement made me realize two very important things:
1: How little it took to make my kid have his best day ever.
2: The fact that we needed to do more of this type of small-stuff-celebrating.
I thought of the other upcoming celebrations and events that I had been dreading due to the current circumstances and my mind began to spiral with ideas of how, those too, could become future “best days”.
Challenge accepted.
2020 would be our year of celebrating the small stuff
Throughout the next few months we packed in Family Fiestas complete with piñatas and taco bars, a crab feed for my seafood-loving son’s birthday with underwater bingo and lobster bibs, Disney days and Applepaloosa, just to name a few. Each event or celebration included silly games and activities, themed food and fun for all.
And by “all” I simply mean my family.
In the past I likely would have deemed it “not worth it” to go to all the fuss and work when no friends or extended family members could join us, but this year these celebrations have been oh-so worth it.
I know that this year will go down in the history books for a lot of not-so-great reasons. But I have a hunch my family will also remember it as the year we made the little things special.
And for that, 2020, I am grateful.
