How are you feeling about the upcoming holiday season?

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, oh my!

Are you feeling anxious?

ME TOO.

Are you feeling giddy?

ME TOO.

Are you ready to celebrate these festivities like 2020, 2021, and coronavirus all never happened?
ME TOO.

But are you not going to because the pandemic is still a thing, and each of us still needs to make smart, safe, and good choices because people's lives and getting America back to total normal depends on it?

ME TOO.

Yes, unfortunately, covid and delta are still a thing.

Like a chin hair that keeps popping up that you just want to stay the fudge away, the pandemic is lingering, and so is the divide amongst many of us.

So here's what I'm thinking and what I'm suggesting...

This holiday season, from October through January, how about we stay the heck out of each other's business

UNLESS WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF BEING NICE.

OF BEING KIND.

OF NOT BEING NONJUDGEMENTAL.

OF UNDERSTANDING THAT EACH ONE OF US IS SIMPLY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY TRYING TO SURVIVE THIS PANDEMIC - MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY - AND THAT WE'RE ONLY DOING WHAT WE, INDIVIDUALLY, FEEL IS RIGHT FOR OURSELVES AND OUR FAMILY

(AND FOR SOME OF US, THE COLLECTIVE).

Take me, for example.

Me and mine didn't trick or treat last year, but we are going to this year. That being said, I don't plan on us attending any big inside Halloween parties.

Me and mine had a mostly outside Thanksgiving last year on my family's side, and on my husband's, we didn't gather at all. This year, with almost all of us vaccinated minus the ineligible kiddos and few stragglers, we're hoping we can safely be together and give thanks for each other and the lives we're all lucky enough to still be living.

And last year, for Christmas, one of my kids asked for Santa to "make coronavirus go away." Santa didn't deliver. He couldn't. But you know what he (okay, and me and Publix) did still deliver? Joy, fun, the smell of a wood-burning fireplace, cookies in the oven, a ham just pulled out of the stove, and the feel of lightness, magic, and goodness, all around.

I don't know what holidays you and yours celebrate.

And I don't know what level of comfort you and yours are at when it comes to getting together with loved ones (or friends) and observing them this year.

But, what I do know, is that I'm not going to harbor any ill feelings if you and yours decide to go about the next few months differently than me and mine.

And what I also know is that what you decide to do, you're doing because you believe in it and it feels right, and no one, not me OR ANY KAREN OR KEN, can tell you "you're not right."

Because what's not right,

what will forever not be correct,

what is a whole bunch of shiitake,

is any of us thinking that we know for sure anything about another that gives us the

right to tell them how to live.

There's another confusing season on the horizon, folks—one sure to bring with it lots of anxiety and discord.

Stay above it.

I've said my peace; now go with peace.

[Preferably in a mask if you're going inside somewhere super crowded and you can't distance, but that's just my opinion and to each their own].

Written with love, light, pumpkin spice and little of “please be nice.”