Through the eyes of a 7 year old

My son was drawing some Christmas cards for his school friends last week and decided to write one to himself as well.

Without realising what I was saying, I mentioned to him that we don't usually send cards to ourselves, it's usually just for our family or friends. Without missing a beat, he just said, 'I didn't write one card for me. I wrote two. One for home and one to take to school.'

After a bit of an internal giggle, I left it at that and he carried on drawing his cards.

He later presented our cards to us when we were all at home. We even had to line up in a straight line to receive our cards.... In my card, he drew a picture of me (with long hair, of course - he doesn't like my hair cut short.... - and I even got a crown! :-)

After thinking about it some more a while later, I was so proud of him for writing himself a card. Actually, two! Why shouldn't we acknowledge ourselves too? I mean, we talk about self-care and self-love but how do we truly live that? It can look different for everyone, right?

Throughout the whole exercise he was dedicating time and energy just for him and for something that not only brought him joy as he drew the card, but would bring him joy when he opened them.

And let me tell you, joy is exactly what he experienced when he opened his own card! To be honest, I don't think he could have been any happier if the card had come from Santa Claus himself!

It can be so easy to focus on everything we have to do at this time of year that we can forget about ourselves. It can be a crazy time and it's been a crazy year but I hope we all can take a moment for a little bit of joy for ourselves too.

What might that look like for you?