Reimagine the Holidays: Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

 This Thanksgiving I am grateful I have an imagination. With COVID-19 and the trouble in our country, this holiday season will be different from all the others. We will not be with family or friends celebrating in traditional ways or places. So this year, I am using all the powers of my imagination to reimagine the holidays.

Here is the first and most important step in doing that. Imagine the 2021 holiday season, the 2022 holiday season, and onward. I will reimagine this holiday season so that (with luck) I can have holidays next year and the next and the next. I must hold fast to the picture of celebrating in those future years so I can have the strength to celebrate this holiday in a different way. That takes imagination, seeing into the future to sacrifice something important to me now, holding the long view.

As a culture, we aren't trained to do this. We want instant gratification. With extroversion being the primary value in our society, we have difficulty imagining how we could celebrate the holidays, just this once, in a more intimate and inner way. I am trying to use my imagination to explore what that looks like. My hope is that it can be a unique experience.

Stay tuned. I will let you know in December how well this goes.