Suz Muse: 'I had the most magical holiday I’ve ever had in my life…'

By Suzanne Greive I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. I had the most magical holiday I’ve ever had in my life. I believe the reason is because I took on the attitude of “If this is the only thing I do this holiday season, it will be enough.” In years past I have had list after list of things that made the holiday special to me. But this year I took the Marie Kondo approach and asked myself “does this spark joy”? If not, I didn’t do it. Seems so simple that I don’t know why it took me so many years to figure it out. It seemed like the more I lowered my expectations the more the magic happened. I noticed a guy out my window walking by that was the spitting image of Santa. I was drawn to him. I walked out to see who he was and he said “I’m Santa, of course.” He said he was heading to Children’s Hospital to deliver toys. His beard was real, the sparkle in his eye was real. He gave me a hug and asked me what I wanted for christmas. He totally made my day. I went to Bakery Nouveau and picked up some of their special holiday baking. It was fun to try different baked goods that originated in other countries. I took a great box of samples to my niece’s house and we had a lovely afternoon tea with all the ladies in our family. What a holiday treat that was every bit as special as if I had baked them myself. My brothers and sister flew into town and we recreated the holiday of our youth. We all got matching jammies and took group photos. All four of us kids spent the night on Christmas eve at my childhood home and snuck in to my parent’s room before they woke up on Christmas morning jumping on their bed saying “Santa came, get up, get up, get up” It was so much fun! It just seemed like the more I dropped off the ‘big’ things off my list like baking dozens of baked goods, mailing dozens of cards and packages, shopping, etc. The more the little magic moments took root. Get rid of the big stuff that feels like an obligation and go with the small moments that create life time memories.]]>