I woke up this morning after having a good night’s sleep knowing full well that I did not complete all the tasks I set out to do the day before and that is ok.

Life can and will get in the way and you also need to know what your limits are, also know that those limits can change from day today. Yesterday I planned on doing a whole list of chores and only got to one thing on that list before some unforeseen force drained me of all of my energies.

I may not even have time today to get to the rest of that list and that is also ok. Today I have other tasks that need to be completed, if I can at least get one of them done I will feel accomplished.

Going forward I think my blogs will take on a more defined format. I will talk about what struggles I may be facing (If Any) and also talk about the things I am grateful for and the things in my life that make me happy.

To me, the latter is the most important. In my 2018 Happiness Journey that was my focus. I surrounded myself with people, things, and tasks that made me happy, and in turn that reaffirmed my overall positive outlook and made what was a year of struggles to one with many happy memories.

I’ve already had my happy moment for today so anything else on top of that would just be icing on the cake. I have an artificial Christmas tree that I bought a few years ago from Home Depot. For many years we always bought a real tree as it was our preference and my husband thinks artificial trees are an abomination.

We walked into home depot one day for some supplies and as we walked through the store my sight was instantly focused on the most beautiful tree I had ever seen. The tree had instantly brought me joy just to look at it. It was difficult to describe but my gaze could not pull away from it. The way it was flocked with fake snow and the way the colors of its lights twinkled and danced.

I believe I spent the next week trying to convince my husband to let me get it with the condition that we still get a real tree as well. So I bought it and set it up right after Halloween that year. It was so lovely that to this day I do not decorate it with ornaments and it only has a small handful of ornaments that I felt did not take away from the tree.

So every year it goes up right after Halloween, of course like any tree with fake snow flocking it sheds just a little bit each year. I try to be as gentle with it as I can when putting it up and taking it down and so far it has not shed enough to become a problem but it will eventually.

So far Home Depot has sold that tree every year since I purchased mine, but even with that said my husband this morning came to the conclusion that might not always be the case, things come and go and items can be discontinued.

So without any provocation whatsoever he has proclaimed that I need a backup tree.

This is when while sitting in our library sipping our morning coffee tears came unbidden to my eyes. He understands. He understands how much joy and happiness something as frivolous as a Christmas tree brings me. He knows that to me what now signifies the start of the holiday season is putting up that tree. He understands that time will require for it to eventually be replaced meaning that we can’t risk it being discontinued.

That tree to me is a physical manifestation of my joy and happiness during the holidays that literally shines it’s light into the darkness.