Why I choose to draw a line on the mistletoe

By Dr. Heather Bozant Witcher
Contributing Writer

After the candy highs wore off, my children helped – with great sadness – to defrock the house from Halloween. Replacing the spiders, ghosts, skeletons and spooky décor were autumnal leaves, pumpkins, scarecrows and, of course, a turkey.

On one of our first commutes to school in early November, my oldest son was looking out the window. He shouted out that he saw Santa and elves and all manner of Christmas inflatables at one of the houses. We all looked, and, sure enough, there it was. Santa proudly waved to the cars driving by, and snowmen lined the path to the front door.

“Not yet,” I said and held firm.

We know that it’s not just the houses. Heading into Target, Lowe’s, Costco and, really, any store, the halls have already been decked. While I appreciate the 30 minutes of toddler entertainment that these holiday tidings bring to my life when running errands, I will remain an early-holiday-season Grinch.

Why do we have to rush from Halloween to Christmas? We skip an entire month that should be focused on a particularly needed human trait: gratitude.

Truly, when was the last time you really practiced gratitude? I’m not talking about the pleasantries of saying “thank you” – although even those manners seem to be, unfortunately, disappearing. Instead, I’m thinking about making gratefulness and appreciation a part of everyday activity.

Taking time to slow down and appreciate the everyday parts of our lives that give us joy or a sense of peace is a fundamental part of this practice. Our lives are stressful, but it’s much easier to let an entire day go by and think about all the negatives instead of identifying the positives. 

After a particularly difficult day in the classroom, I come home and make dinner, only to find that my children aren’t interested in what’s been put on their plate. 

It’s easy to get frustrated; it’s not as easy to be grateful for the time that we’re spending together at the dinner table talking about the phonograms they’re learning in kindergarten or the friend at daycare who had a hard time in the sandbox.

Another way that my husband and I have been practicing gratitude is sharing notes of appreciation. Sometimes it’s an email; sometimes a quick text or a sticky note left in a lunchbox. 

But because we have only a few hours in each weekday to really connect with one another, these mementos of gratitude go a long way for our relationship.

This sort of consistency in expressing gratitude is a difficult thing to cultivate. But perhaps if, like Advent or Lent, we took the month of November to celebrate and practice gratefulness, we would become better at encouraging the practice. And maybe the rounds of Thanksgiving gratitude during the turkey dinner won’t feel as contrived or pointless.

Now, when we pass the house that has been celebrating Christmas for almost an entire month already, all my kids yell out: “Too soon!” 

And they’re not wrong.

hbozantwitcher@clarionherald.org