Life is a Celebration – Do it!

All of life is a celebration.  Or it should be.  Even the pain and difficulties eventually lead to growth and maturity and that is to be celebrated.  With Love day swiftly approaching, we have another opportunity to celebrate. Many folks believe that the retailers of cards, flowers,  chocolate and jewelry got together and came up with the idea of Valentine’s Day to capitalize on our vulnerable emotions.  And it worked.  Many folks believe that Valentine’s Day is just a cruel joke to remind them that they don’t have a significant other and they become irritable and depressed.  I’ve always hated that song Dean Martin used to sing ‘your nobody till somebody loves you’.  That’s not encouraging. What are you gonna do?  I guess you could ignore the day and continue on in your pursuit of unhappiness or you could ‘when in Rome’ the situation. You can probably guess I’m of the latter persuasion. 
 I think Love day is just a great reminder to remind the people in your life that they are loved and it doesn’t have to be just romantic relationships.  We can show grandma we love her.  We can tell our kids we love them.  We can spread the love to our friends.  Of course, it’s always uplifting to be reminded that our spouse loves us. I heard a story about a wife that complained that her husband never told her he loved her.  When she questioned him about it, after many years, he replied ‘I told you on our wedding day that I loved you, if anything changes I’ll let you know’.  Well, that’s just not good enough, is it? 
I feel every opportunity we get to celebrate should be embraced.  Especially in these socially distant times we are living in.  We haven’t seen our friends for months.  And who can get a romantic relationship going from 6 feet apart??? ZOOM dating?  With everyone underfoot at home, irritability can run high.  Not to mention depression.  When you can’t leave the house.  Can’t go to a movie to escape.  Can’t take your loves to a restaurant or for coffee.  Home life is getting pretty dreary and tense.  I say, let’s celebrate.  Let’s celebrate each other.  Let’s celebrate love and togetherness.  Let’s celebrate as an act of gratefulness. We haven’t seen our friends for months.  Many kids in our country  are distance learning and they miss their friends and can’t give out Valentines anymore (is that even politically correct)?  No taking cupcakes and cookies for the whole class to share.  Many of our widowed, divorced or single friends don’t have anyone to acknowledge their value to the world.  Let’s make it our mission to make sure they aren’t left out. 
To enable people to celebrate with flair, I am making and baking Valentines treats and gifts for giving and delivering.  Make Valentine’s special.  Make a special meal at home.  Decorate.  Play games.  Open up free flow of communication.  Encourage love in all its forms.  Romantic love. Family love. Friendship love and the love of God. Research the 5 love languages and try to love people in a way that it will be recognized by them as love.  
Celebrate.  Only hug the ones in your own household though.  I tried to hug my adult son (that has lived with us all of Covid) and he said ‘mom, if you don’t mind, I’m isolating’.  So some will resist, but don’t let that stop you.  It’s great to be alive.  It’s great to be loved and to love.  That what we were made for.