Can you feel the rise of expectations during the holidays – especially since it’s our first fully-vaccinated and “boosted” holiday season since 2019?

We have GREAT EXPECTATIONS!

It’s a hallmark version of life we may long for, but the reality of changing circumstances may give us something less than what we had envisioned.

Should we feel like failures? Maybe we’ll just let the holiday season slip right on past and pretend it never happened.

Every religious holiday I can think of is centered around the theme of love – giving it, receiving it, revering the gift of love, and being inspired by it. Most secular and national holidays recognize love and gratitude in some way.

Halloween may be the exception, however; but it does highlight a love of candy, having fun, and all things pumpkin.

So, are all the Hallmark accoutrements of over-the-top decorations, festivals, and parades just so much window dressing?

Like the famous Wendy’s commercial of old which asked, “Where’s the beef,” we might be asking, where’s the love?

Our social calendar may look a little empty due to infirmity, circumstances, moving, or a host of other reasons. There may be a little less to work with this year.

But it’s not the window dressings  we remember or hold in our hearts – it’s the love and how we felt.

The memories that last are the songs our hearts were singing at the time – love songs of joy, warmth, and care.

The theme of changing expectations to focus on the love – instead of the window dressings – is reverberating more and more with many of us.

Gathering a few of the many decorations from my home of over 40 years to my nascent home in another town, I kept repeating my new mantra of “expectations” to adjust what environment I wanted to create and WHY I felt it was important.

I did not need the full Hallmark effect. What I needed was the LOVE.

May we not lament the things and experiences we do not have.

More than ever, we need to rejoice in the loving relationships we are nurturing. Strengthening the loving bonds may look a bit different again this year, but the resulting full hearts will forever be warmed by something that endures, crossing distance, time, and space.

With love and appreciation for each foodtalk4you subscriber –

Deidre