Good is Contagious...

We came home from a wonderful weekend of family and fun to find nothing. What’s wrong with that you ask? Well AJ had ordered me an anniversary gift that he was expecting to see at the door…and yet it was missing.


We searched the front door, side doors, around the house and anywhere else the clever FedEx men like to leave our deliveries.

Nothing.

AJ was upset and pacing around the house when it occurred to me that perhaps the Christmas gifts that I had recently ordered may have shown up as well. I checked the status of these items and sure enough they too were showed as delivered on Friday. :-(

You can imagine my disappointment when I had to tell my already upset husband that three Christmas gifts I had ordered were now missing too.

My first reaction upon these realizations was to cry. I had been so excited to come home and start decorating, wrapping presents and getting into the Christmas spirit. This harsh realization that there are people out there that would just take things from others felt like someone had kicked my puppy (pardon the visual). My holiday spirit turned into holiday disappointment and quickly into holiday anger.

I spent the evening trying to remind myself that they are only things. “Elyse, things are trivial, unimportant and ultimately can always be replaced”. Yet despite my best efforts to avoid it…I went to bed angry and disappointed in people.

With the new day came a new thought: I’m going to make “good” contagious. I will put as much “good” into the world as I can and hope that my good will counteract someone else’s “bad”.

I wrote awhile back about “random acts of kindness” and I had to read that blog again to remind myself that there are people out there who do good things for no reason. With that realization, I also had to come to terms with the fact that for every person that is doing “good” things for no reason…there are just as many people doing “bad” things for no reason. Oh how I loathe reality checks.

So I end with this:

Am I still angry about our packages being stolen? Yes.

Will I let this ruin the holiday season and my attitude towards people? No.

We just spent the weekend giving thanks for all of the blessings in our lives and so I choose to continue on from this negative situation doing the same.

I am thankful that we had the opportunity to spend the weekend with so many people that we love. I am thankful that we made it home safely and that our home was not tampered with while we were gone. And I am thankful that we have to deal with such a small issue, because so many others are dealing with things much bigger, more difficult and more important.

This holiday season: Do good…it’s contagious.

Love,
Elyse