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A Quarantined Christmas - Tea Talk

Happy Friday! Leading up to Christmas, I honestly had no idea what that day would look like. As we know, it's STILL a global pandemic and I don't know about you but my family & I are still practicing social distancing. With that being said, my level of Christmas cheer was not what it usually is because I knew that I wouldn't be able to celebrate with my loved ones the way I normally would.

As the month started, I had already ordered most of my gifts from Amazon to cut down the amount of time that I needed to go to the store. Once I had that set, I had to figure out how I would even exchange gifts with people while still keeping myself & others safe. I thought about it for a few days came up with a master plan. For starters, I usually exchange gifts with my best friend and refused to not keep that tradition, so we settled on shipping gifts to each other and opening them on zoom. At first I was thinking this would not be as exciting as it normally is when we open gifts in person but zoom gift opening was awesome! I truly had fun that Sunday evening. Thank God for technology.

My next task was my family; I decided that we would do gift drop offs. Between Christmas Eve & Christmas day, during different time slots, my immediate family stopped by and we swapped gifts (while wearing a mask). Much like the zoom, this was just fine too. Yes, it was fast and didn't involve sitting and talking for long periods of time but the sentiment was that I still got to see my family, while being safe. I felt extremely satisfied with how it all turned out.

The rest of Christmas Eve & Christmas Day I spent time baking homemade cookies, watching movies and listening to Christmas music. My husband and I sported our new Christmas pj's but since we ended up lounging all day, we never took a photo lol. My Mom made a yummy pot roast that we ate for days and somewhere in between those moments I realized... a quarantined Christmas wasn't so bad after all.

This was one of those moments where you choose to be grateful for what you have, instead of focusing on what you don't. By God's grace I was still able to see my loved ones, whether it was on zoom, facetime or masked & socially distanced in person. I still was able to give gifts. I still was able to bake cookies and watch movies. I was able to do everything I normally would, it was just different. This past Christmas may not have been filled with a house full of people, but in those quiet moments I was just blessed to be here and be present. I was blessed that I survived such a whirlwind of a year and have remained healthy. Most importantly, I was BLESSED by the Birth of Jesus.

I don't know what 2021 will look like honestly. We are only 8 days in and of course still living in a pandemic, on top of a bunch of political turmoil. What I do know is, we are still blessed. Even though 2021 may look a lot like 2020 right now, there is still so much to be grateful for. Things are often times what you make them. I made my Christmas season work for me and plan to take those lessons into this new year as I continue to navigate the current state of the world we live in. 

Stay connected! Call, text or zoom your family and friends. I promise it's still just as heartfelt.
Pray for one another because to me, that is the greatest gift of all.
And lastly, take care of yourself.

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."

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