How to Practice Holiday Gratitude This Year

For blogmas this year, I decided to switch it up and highlight local bloggers in the area that you should already be following! My first guest post comes from Maura, from www.mauramanor.com and she is telling us all about holiday gratitude this year. Be sure to check out all of her information at the end of this post!

Hi there! I’m Maura over at MauraManor.com here wanting to wish you all a happy happy happy holiday season! Can you believe it’s here already!? I know this is cliché, but 2019 was an absolute whirlwind for me. It was jam packed with ups and downs, and seriously just flew by. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for this snowy, cuddly month coming up to round out this decade. Yes, decade, friends.

With the holidays now officially in full-swing (yay!), it’s also the time of the year when it’s easiest to get lost in all the toxicity the holidays can inevitable bring. The shopping, the expectations, the prices; it can be a lot to handle. BUT! It can also bring so much darn joy and special memories if we make a special effort to stay grounded, take in the moments for what they are, and practice mindful gratitude.

For all you holistic-health doubters, it’s scientifically proven that practicing gratitude can impact your health in a positive way. Easy, easy steps can help foster more genuine, positive relationships, improve your self-esteem and the way you perceive yourself, and better your physical and mental health. All win-wins, right?

So what’s the trick? How much time will it take? Is it free? There are no tricks, it’s quick, it’s easy, and there is zero-cost, friends. I’m just here to share with you ten simple exercises to use this holiday season and carry with you the rest of 2019 and in to 2020 to make your heart feel like the Grinch’s when it grew ten sizes.

Ten Easy Ways to Practice Holiday Gratitude this Year

1 – Be Intentional on How You Give

It’s always good practice to set goals on how you want to give back during the holidays since they kinda revolve on immediate friends and family and not the greater community. Whether it’s donating your time or donating to a toy drive, just doing one small bit of giving back during the holiday season can bring everything back into perspective while benefiting others at the same time.

2 – Make a List of Things You Have Instead of Things You Want

Admit it or not, this time of year is often focused on receiving gifts. To increase your gratitude, make a list of things you already have, tangible or not. Count your blessings and record how it makes you feel to have these things in your life. This never fails to make me feel like the luckiest human alive.

3 – Surround Yourself with Grateful People

This is one I know myself and many, many other people struggle with during the holiday season. With the holidays comes with this expectation to spend it all with family, which can include toxic or stressful family members. This year, drop those expectations and spend your holiday time with people who are going to return the same gratitude you give. Whether it be family, friends, or “chosen” family, don’t feel like you have some allotted time to fill with everyone. The holidays are meant to spend with the ones you love, do that and separate yourself from the rest.

4 – Minimize Gift Overload

Practice “less is more this year” and encourage others to do the same! Try to minimize expectations for gift giving this year with family and friends, and instead spend some quality time that shows love in other ways. Play some board games, bake cookies, go on a family walk – it will mean so much more.

5 – Start Journaling

Journaling is thee most simple habit to adopt, and can really support us in re-wiring our brains so we are more prone to notice the things we appreciate, as opposed to our brains being stuck in constant problem-solving mode (guilty!). This December, try starting each day by writing 5-10 things you are grateful for. This will help with the way you see your daily life, goals, and others around you.

6 – Practice Intentional Mindfulness

Carve out a few minutes each day to channel positive thoughts. It can be at any point in the day, but I loveeeee practicing in the morning to really set the tone for the day ahead. When we start our day with a morning meditation of mindfulness (say that 3 times fast), we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to be fully aware, fully awake, and fully alive before really “doing” anything. This obviously isn’t a cure-all to your daily stressors, but meditation can most definitely help us manage both our home lives and our work lives more skillfully and mindfully.

7 – Write Thank You Notes or Other Snail Mail

The act of saying thank you can help you better appreciate the gifts YOU receive. This year, thank someone for being a good friend or helping you in an intangible way or just drop a note to say you’re thinking of them! When your relationships are strengthened, your own personal gratitude grows as well. Plus, everyone loves getting mail!

8 – Share in Different Ways than Usual

You don’t have to pay a cent to share your talent and knowledge with someone. If you love to cook, share your recipes! If you are a yoga teacher, guide someone through a flow you’ve been perfecting! If you are a musician, offer a lesson! Spreading your gifts is so important, and those on the receiving end will be so grateful.

9 – Give Back to Your Smaller Community

Shopping small and local is so important during the holiday season! And even if you don’t have money to spend, you can still help your community’s small businesses! Share posts, tag friends, comment something nice, shout them out, or leave a review – it’s so easy and means so much to the people next door hustling this holiday season.

Cincinnati Non-Profits to Give to this Year

• Louie’s Legacy Rescue – Louie’s Legacy is a no-kill, non-profit shelter that has helped save thousands of animals while becoming one of the largest foster-based rescues in the country. With a little adopted one in my house, this is very close to my heart.
• The Dragonfly Foundation – The Dragonfly Foundation is a non-profit based out of Cincinnati that supports families who have a child with pediatric cancer both during and after treatment.
• The Brewhaus Bakery – My cousin volunteered here and I thought it was just an absolute amazing story. Brewhaus is a non-profit creating handcrafted, small batch, oven baked dog treats while providing vocational training for young adults with disabilities.
• Ronald McDonald House – The RMH in Cincinnati provides a home for 78 families every night who travel to Cincinnati seeking medical care for their critically ill children.
• ArtsWave – ArtsWave helps gift tens of thousands of people in the area to create over 100+ art projects and organizations to connect and color communities and get children interested in the arts.
• Homeless Coalition Cincy – The HCC is committed to the eradication of homelessness in Cincinnati, which is pertinent always, but especially around the holiday season.

10 – Pay Gratitude to Your Body

While you may have some health problems, mental or physical, focus on the positive aspects of your health. Are you able to get outside and enjoy the crunchy leaves or the fluffy snow? Can you smell Christmas dinner cooking or hug a loved one who’s come to visit? Can you see the colors of Christmas lights? We often take our physical abilities or health for granted. Manifest gratitude towards being thankful for what your health + body allow you to do and not how it may be limiting.

Call it a hunch, but I think most of us yearn for a little less stress during the holiday season and more time to enjoy those closest to us. Practicing these simple tips this holiday season can absolutely transform the holidays for you, and keep you from dreading them, to counting down the days.

Think of it this way – in 10 years, your friends and family won’t remember what silly thing you bought them. They won’t look back on how clean your house was or how yummy the food was. But, friends, they will think of the games you played. The stories you told. The traditions you made. The experiences you shared. And that’s all we really want, right?

I hope this list was helpful for you in thinking about some tangible and simple practices to bring more gratitude into your life during the holiday season! Feel free to follow along with me over at www.MauraManor.com for more holistic-health and clean-living tips and tricks, and on Instagram at @Maura.Manor for the same, plus cute puppy photos 🙂 Cheers, friends!

How will you practice holiday gratitude this year? Comment below!

Have you read my last Blogmas post? You can check it out here!