Gratitude and Joy: Reading and Advent Calendars

Gratitude and Joy: Day 5

I am grateful for:

Reading

I am happiest when I can read for at least one uninterrupted hour every day. Some days I get a lot more than that, and most weeks there's a day or two (or three) where I'm lucky to manage ten minutes. Reading is one of my chief joys, and I've realized (not really for the first time) lately that it's also one of the most important ways that I take care of myself. Reading allows me to pause, to rest, to reset, while it also exercises my mind and entertains me. Long stretches without sustained reading time (even when those stretches are otherwise happy or fulfilling times) are invariably times when I feel out of sorts, not quite right with the world or myself. 

In the last nine days, I have only managed a proper sustained read once. I'm right in the middle of the harried part of the preparation for Christmas, the two weeks or so when all the decorating, buying, wrapping, card writing, post office going and last-minute yarn-craft-gift finishing happens, and I simply haven't had the time (or sometimes the energy, when the end of the day comes and I only have enough brain cells left for television). The absence of sustained reading makes me realize how much a I love it, how much it does for me, and how grateful I am that I have the ability--through literacy and leisure--to engage in such a sustaining hobby. 

I am made joyful by:

Advent Calendars 

We always had an advent calendar when I was growing up. The one I remember best was a 3-D jobber of a cathedral. You had to walk around the whole thing to find the right door for the day. I delighted in it every morning. That particular calendar kind of died at some point and we had others in my teenaged years. My high school German teacher always incorporated a German advent calendar into lessons in December. (Those had chocoloate behind the doors, a thing which until that time was unheard of in my world, though it seems to be very common here now.) I've had one every year of my adult life too, supplemented in the last few seasons by a nifty animated one on the computer that involves music and activities. They are a simple treat, a small thing to look forward to , and the prospect of opening the door each day still sparks that little joy in me that it did as a kid. Now, too, it helps me slow down and notice the passing of each day rather than letting them all congeal into one great seasonal clump.