How expectations lead to resentment

For the past 18 years, my daughters would put on their bright white tights and Patton leather shoes and stand in line for their five minutes with Santa Claus.

I have a Santa time stamp wall that is one of my most precious picture displays ever to me.

I have framed every single year's Santa portrait and have them displayed in chronological order in our hall. Every single time I walk past this wall, I bask in our memories and reminisce on all of our holidays together.

It brings me so much joy.

One year, we went and took our pictures and our bags from the day got pushed away until the night before Christmas, as often happens.

I emptied my bags to wrap presents on Christmas Eve after everyone was snuggled in bed and our portraits were nowhere to be found. I searched high and low and could not find them. You can imagine how disappointed I felt sitting there empty-handed, in the middle of the night, knowing Santa had flown back to the North Pole for the year and my prepared frame would remain empty.

The holidays passed and I wrapped up each frame ever so carefully, grieving the loss of this particular year on my wall, and felt the same pang of sadness when I unwrapped those frames the following year to display them once again for the holidays.

Unbeknownst to me, my oldest daughter had heard my conversations about our wall and went and found the video of them meeting Santa and took a screenshot of them laughing and smiling and placed it in a frame, and surprised me with it

My timestamp remained complete.

Her thoughtful action would have meant a lot, I believe, to anyone.

As an act of service love language myself, my heart overflowed with feeling loved and cared for. How I give and desire love and affection is through acts of service.

It meant enough to her to take the time and energy to screengrab the shot and frame it and I could not have felt more loved in that moment.

She spoke my language.

I know we all have stories to tell of holidays gone by in ways we were surprised and in ways that we were disappointed.

Our expectations during the holidays can lead to so much resentment.

And our expectations are often based on our love language.

Love Language is the way a person prefers to express and receive love. You can take this short quiz found in the link below to help you determine your Love Language.

The 5 love languages are gifts, acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, and physical touch.

We expect our loved ones to celebrate the holiday in the same way that we do. When they don't, we often feel upset and hurt and become resentful.

Can you pause this holiday season and recognize your loved ones are speaking to you in their love language?

It is difficult to learn any new language- A love language is no different.

When we can pause and recognize their efforts as their love language, we often begin to recognize how very loved we are.

Want to hear more about this? Join me for this week's podcast below.

 https://lovehealthrive.podbean.com/e/holiday-vibe-edition-how-your-expectations-lead-to-resentment/