What kind of mood are you in over the holidays? Are the holidays a blast or do you feel some blues?
Like most things, there are two sides to the holidays. Some people feel like holidays are a real ‘blast”. They happily embrace the increase in activity with more decorating, more parties, more eating, more concerts and more of many activities. For those people, the holidays mean more fun!

What is it about this time of the year that brings a special excitement for young and old alike? Perhaps it has something to do with traditions. We remember what it was like for us when we were young, the traditions we participated in and the happiness they brought.

What do holiday lights mean to you? There can be many meanings of lights. Maybe they mean fun times or new beginnings or perhaps lights have other meanings for you.

On the weekend, we were at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska at their Making Spirits Bright holiday lighting display. We saw beautiful lights both inside and outside. There’s also a twenty-four- foot poinsettia tree made from 525 poinsettias.

How can you make Thanksgiving a special day? Most of us know what it feels like to really “click” with people and to enjoy warmth and acceptance from others. Many people will be getting together with friends and family to share enjoyable times and good food. Thanksgiving Day can be a wonderful time of coming together but for some people it can also be a day for “coming apart”.

What do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving? Perhaps you feel thankful for many blessings. Maybe you are grateful for wonderful times with family and friends. Also, you are probably thankful for all the delicious food – turkey, ham, or a main dish with all the trimmings and scrumptious desserts. For most of us, we don’t go hungry. In fact, at Thanksgiving, we often have too much to eat and on most days, we have a cupboard that’s full of food.

What do you want to see grow in your life and how are you going to focus on it so it happens? What got us thinking about this is that each fall we bring some of our outside plants in the house so they make it over the winter. We noticed that a tiny green spike that was about 10 inches high two years ago, is now over 6 feet tall! We focus on most of our plants with consistent care and maybe the love and talking to them also helps.

What transformation do you want for your life? We have seen how caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies. Maybe there are some things in your life where you would like to see a transformation. Caterpillars seem to have transformation built into their DNA, but for us, it doesn’t happen so automatically. We wondered what it takes to have a transformation. One way was revealed to us as we were driving and the truck ahead of us had three words on the back of it: Listen – Create – Transform.