This past year I chose “joy” as my word of the year. And recently I’ve seen a few “A to Z” listings of things to do. So combining these 2 inspirations, I created an A to Z list of seasonal things that bring me joy. I hope to inspire you to find joy in the little things at this time of year!
| A | Arts & crafts shows for Christmas shopping |
| B | Ball drop on New Year’s Eve (on TV!) |
| C | Christmas stuff – Carols, Cookies, Cards, and Candy Canes |
| D | Decorating the tree |
| E | (Christmas) Eve Mass |
| F | Fall Festival (corn maze, pumpkin patch, caramel apple, cider, hay ride) |
| G | Garden cleanup (ahh, the feeling of accomplishment) |
| H | Hot chocolate |
| I | Icicle lights on eaves |
| J | Jungle Jim’s holiday shopping (an amazing local food store) |
| K | King’s Hawaiian Rolls with turkey salad and Cranberry sauce (yum!) |
| L | Lights in the neighborhood; driving around to see them! |
| M | Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade |
| N | Nutcracker Ballet (live) |
| O | Oh Holy Night (my favorite carol) |
| P | Pickled herring – my mom’s New Year tradition |
| Q | Quiet time listening to music |
| R | Reindog Parade (another local event) |
| S | Stockings hung on mantel |
| T | Thanksgiving Turkey with the traditional sides – done again on Christmas |
| U | Unique holiday gifts |
| V | Vision board creation for new year |
| W | Wine while Wrapping presents |
| X | Xmas shopping (on-line!) |
| Y | Year-end accomplishment lists |
| Z | Zoo Festival of Lights – another local event |
Wishing you all a very joyous holiday season.
retirementtransition 
Thanks, Pat. Consider me inspired, particularly by the Reindog Parade and the W trifecta – Wine While Wrapping. Wonderful! Best Wishes for a Happy New Year and rewarding 2017.
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LOL.. W trifecta! Wine was a big part of this holiday season… a great de-stresser. Happy New Year to you as well.
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Its a great list. Merry Christmas. Enjoy your turkey Jim is making me waffles for breakfast. Hope Tim is better.
LOVE YA Mom
On Sat, Dec 24, 2016 at 11:24 AM, retirementtransition wrote:
> patwdoyle11 posted: “This past year I chose “joy” as my word of the year. > And recently I’ve seen a few “A to Z” listings of things to do. So > combining these 2 inspirations, I created an A to Z list of seasonal things > that bring me joy. I hope to inspire you to find joy i” >
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So very impressed you figured out how to post a comment on the site! Woohoo!! Love you too!
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Love this list — especially your inspiration for “W”!! Wishing you a safe and happy Christmas and a wonderful new year!
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Wine has been part of this holiday quite a bit….it’s eased the normal holiday stress quite a bit. Like 4 hours of wrapping to 30 minutes of unwrapping….or 4.5 hours to make Christmas dinner which was eaten in 20 minutes (followed by 1.5 hours of clean up). Yeah, wine helped! Happy New Year to you!
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Great list! I was just thinking about my inspiration word for next year so I really love your “wrap-up” for your 2016 word. It is obvious that you found a lot of joy this year, and especially around the holidays. Oh Holy Night is my favorite Christmas song too (says the confirmed atheist). I wonder if Jungle Jim’s is like the Trader Joe’s we have here? I’m looking forward to reading what your 2017 inspiration word is. Merry Christmas, Pat!
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I’ve been contemplating my new word all month! I am doing a vision board for 2017 to see what emerges….will post on it for sure.
Jungle Jim’s is not really Trader Joe’s (we have that also). It’s more an international food store and huge. There are full aisles of food from many, many countries. Direct imports that you need to be able to read the language of that country – Thailand, Japan, Phillipines, Mexico, Germany, Israel, Italy, Sweden, etc. I’ve never counted how many countries! And then a full bakery, butcher, charceuterie, deli, olive bar, sushi bar, fish market, fruit & veggies from around the world, wine store, beer store, butter bar, cheese bar, cigar bar, oil & vinegar aisle, hot sauce aisle, game meat aisle, etc. Oh and regular supermarket stuff, too. It’s a 2-3 hour shopping excursion. Now that we are retired, we go every few months…versus the once a year trek.
Happy new year to you!
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That store sounds amazing!
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