Who in this house made my life better this year?
Who made my life better this year?
This is the first full week of Advent Overflow. For the next seven days, we look back over the last year at what got better, and then we find who or what was behind it.
The week runs on the rhythm from the Premise:
Monday to Wednesday: Saturate. These three days are for receiving. Each day has a short reading and a few minutes of noticing. The days follow the three C's from the Premise, three circles that widen as you go: the people in your house (Core) on Monday, the people within your reach (Community) on Tuesday, and the good things no person arranged (Cosmos) on Wednesday. There's nothing to build yet.
Thursday: Celebrate. As the Premise mentioned, it's called Thankful Thursday. The night runs in three steps: Remember (everyone says out loud who made their life better), Rejoice (everyone shows off something they learned this year), and Ready (you print photos and cut leaves for the weekend).
Friday to Sunday: Participate. These three days are for giving. You write thank-you notes on paper and photo leaves and hang them on the tree, working through the same three circles: Core on Friday, Community on Saturday, and Cosmos on Sunday.
Every daily reading has the same three parts: a picture for the heart, a point for the head, and a practice for the hands. The pictures are short stories. Some are true, some are made up, and some are a mix of the two. Whichever kind it is, each one is there to set up the day's point. By Sunday night, the bare trunk on your wall will have its first leaves.
A mom is sitting in the school pickup line, scrolling through her phone while she waits, when a video from a year ago pops up. Her son, six at the time, is sitting on the hallway floor with a shoe in each hand, red in the face, announcing that he will never learn to tie them and is just going to wear these shoes to bed forever. Her own voice comes from behind the camera, and it sounds tired and a little short with him.
She watches it twice. Then she remembers that this morning, that same boy tied both shoes by himself, double knots and all, and ran out the door yelling for everyone to hurry up.
The strange part is that she hadn't thought about the shoes at all. It had been an ordinary morning, and somewhere in the last year the hallway floor had dropped out of her memory completely. A small miracle had happened in her house, and it had happened so quietly that nobody, including her, ever clapped.
Then she remembers who sat on the bottom step with him for three Saturdays in a row that spring, a shoe on each of their laps, saying the bunny goes around the tree. It was his big sister, who was ten at the time. As far as the mom can remember, nobody ever thanked her for it, and nobody has mentioned it since.
The line starts moving. She inches the car forward, already thinking about what she'll say to her daughter at dinner.
(Read-aloud option: this story works well read to the whole household at the table. Kids may jump in with their own shoe-tying, bike-riding, or swimming stories without being asked.)
What happened to that mom happens to most of us, most of the time. We get used to good things. An improvement shows up, becomes normal, and then disappears from view, because a normal thing doesn't ask for our attention. Psychologists call it the hedonic treadmill, a phrase that goes back to a 1971 essay by Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell. The Preface called it the Comfort Constant, and we'll come back to it in the Impairment days, right before Thanksgiving.
The Comfort Constant is hard on gratitude. Being thankful for an improvement depends on remembering what came before it, and once the new normal settles in, the old way drops out of sight. When the shoes get tied every morning and the hallway floor is forgotten, the gift and the person who gave it tend to disappear together.
That's what this week is about: the good in your life didn't make itself. Almost nothing you can do easily, own, know, or enjoy right now showed up on its own. Someone taught it, built it, paid for it, or put up with you while you learned it. So practicing gratitude takes hindsight, used on purpose: looking back to see who made things better. Remember how things were a year ago, and the difference comes back into view.
People have known this for a very long time. In the story ancient Israel told about itself, Moses led their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt. Deuteronomy, one of the five books that open the Jewish scriptures, is written as his farewell speeches to them, given just before they enter a land of their own.
Over and over in those speeches, he tells them, "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt." They built a yearly meal around that instruction. The Passover meal, which Jewish families still eat every spring, retells the night their ancestors left Egypt, so that no generation forgets where it started.
Hindsight is a skill, and like most skills, it takes practice. Some good things are easy to see, but some are hiding. It helps to picture it as putting on a pair of "Gratitude Glasses," the kind that bring what's already there into focus. Most of us are a little nearsighted when it comes to gratitude. What's close, today and this week, we see just fine, but the further back we look, the blurrier it gets. That blur is where generic thank-yous come from. "I'm thankful for my mom because she's nice" is an honest try at looking back across a whole year, and all it finds is a fuzzy shape. It's not wrong, but it isn't clear enough to make an impact. Put the glasses on, and the same thank-you comes into focus: "I'm thankful Mom sat on the couch with me every night this spring until I could read a chapter book by myself." And some details are small enough that it takes a magnifying glass to see them.
Who in your house made your life better or helped you get better at life this past year, and what was it like before?
This is the "hands" part of the day, where the reading turns into something you do. Today it has two parts, and both are short. Together they gather what you'll write on this weekend's leaves.
1. The journal. In your journal (the Workbook's gratitude pages, or any notebook), answer these three questions for as many people in your house as you like:
What: What got better in the last year? What was it like then, and what is it like now?
Who: Who in your house helped make that happen?
How: What exactly did they do? Name one specific time if you can.
Today's circle is Core: the people who live under your roof, your household. Stick with them today. Everyone else gets a turn on Tuesday and Wednesday. An entry can be as small as this. What: A year ago Lily couldn't swim without her floaties, and now she swims the length of the pool. Who: Dad. How: He took her to the pool every Saturday morning and stood in the water with her until she let go of the wall.
2. The photo hunt. Open your phone and scroll back through the last year, looking for faces from your household. Pick a few photos where someone is doing something that has changed since, and add them to the digital Thankful Album you started on Sunday. (If you haven't made it yet, do that first. It takes about two minutes.) You'll print from it on Thursday.
None of this goes on the tree yet. Think of today's journal entries as rough notes and the photos as a shortlist. On Thursday you'll print the photos, and on Friday the rough notes become thank-yous on the Core leaves.
Kids' story: read "Then and Now" from The Thank-You Adventure in Wanderful Woods together.
Time: 10 to 15 minutes for adults alone, or about 20 if the household does the photo hunt together over dinner.
With younger kids: ask, "What can you do now that you couldn't do a year ago, and who helped you?" and write down what they say. Their answers can be the best ones.
If you live alone: use the choice you made for line 6 of your plan in Prepare. If you chose No Core, today is for your closest people, and tomorrow is for everyone else within your reach.
The sticky part is the person. If someone writes only "A year ago I couldn't drive, and now I can," invite them to add the name of whoever sat in the passenger seat.
A short checklist, so Thursday doesn't sneak up on you.
Put up the paper trunk if it isn't up yet (see Prepare). It stays bare until Friday.
Start the digital Thankful Album if you haven't yet.
Set aside paper, tape, and pens, and know where you'll print photos on Thursday (a home printer or a store that prints photos).
If you didn't get to your plan from Prepare, make it before Thursday, since it decides how many copies of each photo you'll print.
If you're only starting today, you haven't missed anything. No Hurry = No Worry. Tuesday and Wednesday each end with a checklist like this one, too.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, Ricky tied every wish in the woods onto the big bare maple, and the Wishing Tree was ready. But when Mr. Monkey looked at his own wish, his tummy felt heavy.
What’s something you can do now that you couldn’t do a year ago? Let’s find out what Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey can do.
It was a crisp, crunchy morning. Every puddle in Sunny Square had a thin lid of ice on top, and when Mr. Monkey stomped on one, it went krinkle-krak.
“Mr. Moose!” he called. “The puddles have ceilings!”
Mr. Moose didn’t answer. He was standing very straight with his back against the big maple, right under the Wishing Tree, with his chin up and his ears up and his tummy sucked in.
Mama Moose was standing in front of him with a piece of charcoal from the fire. “Hold still,” she said. “Still… still…”
She drew a line on the bark, right at the top of Mr. Moose’s head. Then she stepped back. Just below the new line was an old line. And below that, an older one. And below that, a tiny one, way down low by the roots.
“Every fall,” said Mama Moose, “I mark how tall you are. Look how much you grew this year.”
Mr. Moose turned around and looked. The new line was a whole hoof higher than last year’s.
“Whoa,” said Mr. Monkey. He hopped up on a root and squinted at the lines. “Mr. Moose, last year you were a little moose. Now you’re a medium moose.”
“How did I get taller?” asked Mr. Moose.
“Well,” said Mama Moose, smiling, “that’s a good question to think about.” And she went inside to make breakfast.
Mr. Monkey hopped down. “I want to know if I grew too! Let’s do Then and Now!”
“What’s Then and Now?” asked Mr. Moose.
“I just made it up,” said Mr. Monkey. “You show something you can do NOW that you couldn’t do THEN. A year ago. I’ll go first!”
He ran to the treehouse, where Mama Monkey was shaking out blankets on the porch. “Mama! Watch! Then and Now!”
Mr. Monkey grabbed the highest vine, the long one that went all the way from the treehouse to the tall pine across the path. A year ago, he could only swing on the low vines. Now he swung way out, way up, all by himself.
“WHEEEEE!” He sailed through the air, let go, and reached for the next vine.
He missed.
He fell straight down, fwoop, and landed… right in Mama Monkey’s arms. She had already dropped the blanket and stepped underneath him. She hadn’t even looked worried.
“Hee hee hee!” Mr. Monkey looked up at her. “How did you know?”
“Because I’ve caught you about a hundred times,” said Mama Monkey. “That makes a hundred and one.”
Mr. Monkey stopped laughing. He thought about it. All last spring, every time he tried the high vines, every single time he fell, Mama Monkey was there. Underneath him. Every time.
“Mama,” he said slowly. “Is that why I can swing on the high vines now? Because you caught me?”
“I think you did the swinging,” said Mama Monkey. “I just did the catching.”
“A hundred times,” said Mr. Monkey. “That’s a lot of catching.”
Mama Monkey laughed and set him down. “It was my favorite thing to do.”
Mr. Monkey stood there with a funny feeling in his chest. It was warm and big, and it had nowhere to go.
“Your turn,” he told Mr. Moose. “Then and Now.”
Mr. Moose thought hard. Then he walked down to the brook that ran behind the big maple, where a long, skinny log lay across the water from one side to the other.
“A year ago,” said Mr. Moose, “I couldn’t walk across that log. My legs got all tangled up and I fell in.”
“Every time?” asked Mr. Monkey.
Daddy Moose had come out to stack firewood, and he looked up. “Twenty-two times,” he said. “I counted.”
“Twenty-two?” said Mr. Monkey.
“I stood in the brook beside the log every single time,” said Daddy Moose. “Every morning. So when you fell, you landed on me instead of in the cold water.”
Mr. Moose blinked. He didn’t remember that part. He remembered falling, and he remembered being wet. He did not remember who was underneath him.
“Watch,” said Mr. Moose. “Now.”
He put one hoof on the log. Then the next. His long legs went slow and careful, one, two, three, four. The log wobbled. Mr. Moose didn’t. He walked all the way across to the other side and turned around.
“YOU DID IT!” shouted Mr. Monkey, and he jumped up and down so hard that he jumped right onto the end of the log.
The log bounced. Mr. Moose bounced. And SPLOOSH, Mr. Moose fell into the brook.
He sat in the cold water with a lily pad on one antler.
“Twenty-three,” said Daddy Moose.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose, sitting in the brook.
“Hee hee hee! Oops! Are you okay?” Mr. Monkey reached out his hand to help him up.
“I’m okay,” said Mr. Moose. “That one doesn’t count. That was a bounce.”
“Mr. Splash Moose,” said Mr. Monkey.
Mr. Moose shook his head to get the water out of his ears. The lily pad flew off his antler, sailed through the air, and landed, flap, right on top of Mr. Monkey’s head.
“Hee hee! Now I have a hat,” said Mr. Monkey, and he wore it for the rest of the morning.
Mr. Moose climbed out, dripping. And then he did something he hadn’t done twenty-two times. He walked over and leaned his wet head against Daddy Moose’s big side.
Daddy Moose didn’t say anything. He just leaned back.
Mr. Monkey watched them. That warm, big feeling in his chest came back. “Mr. Moose,” he said, “my tummy feels full, and I didn’t even eat anything.”
Mr. Moose looked at Daddy Moose. “I didn’t know it was Daddy,” he said. “I thought I just got better.”
“I thought I just got better too,” said Mr. Monkey. “But it was Mama. Catching.”
They sat on the bank, thinking. Leaves were everywhere on the ground, brown and red and yellow, piled up under every tree.
“Mr. Moose,” said Mr. Monkey. “I don’t want to forget. Last year I forgot. I forgot a hundred catches!”
Mr. Moose thought it through. How do you remember something so you don’t forget it again? You keep it somewhere. You put it where you can see it.
He picked up a big red leaf off the ground. “What if every time we notice somebody who made us better,” he said, “we pick up a leaf? One leaf for every somebody. And we keep them. Then we can’t forget.”
Mr. Monkey grabbed an empty basket from the porch. He picked up a yellow leaf. “This one is for Mama Monkey. For catching me.”
He put it in the basket.
Mr. Moose dropped in his red leaf. “This one is for Daddy Moose. For standing in the cold water.”
They looked at the two leaves in the bottom of the basket.
“It looks a little empty,” said Mr. Monkey.
“It’s only Monday,” said Mr. Moose.
Just then, Ricky came hurrying across Sunny Square with his rule list tucked under his arm, measuring every pinecone he passed. “Can’t stop!” he called. “New rules! Big rules!” And he was gone.
Mr. Monkey looked up at the Wishing Tree, at his big banana wish turning on its vine. Then he looked down at the basket. He picked it up with both hands.
“I’ll carry this,” he said.
That evening, they walked back across Sunny Square together, Mr. Moose still a little damp, Mr. Monkey holding the basket like it was full of eggs.
“What a day!” said Mr. Moose. “Mama marked how tall I am. Mr. Monkey fell off the high vine and Mama Monkey caught him, a hundred and one. I walked across the log, and then I fell in anyway, twenty-three. And now we have a basket.”
“With two leaves in it,” said Mr. Monkey.
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And on the big maple, the charcoal line sat a whole hoof higher than last year’s, quiet in the moonlight.