Welcome back! I hope your holiday season was fabulous and 2020 is treating you right so far and always.

I’m unsure how it got started, but apparently declaring a word for an upcoming new year is a thing. A word to define one’s hopes and goals for the months to come.

My word, I’ve decided, shall be gifts. Yep, despite the endless thoughts and focus on gifts in the previous few months leading up to Christmas, I’m determined to focus on gifts more. I have several reasons for that:

I need to be more aware of as well as appreciative of the gifts God has given me. Great or small, I need to be more thankful for them all.
I also need to use those gifts large and small more often. Of late, I believe I’ve been squandering them. I won’t go into detail on what “them” might be, in my mind, but do know I’ve not been putting them to use. We all know how it feels to give gifts that don’t get used; I don’t want to be guilty of not using what was so graciously given.
I also want to be a gift to others. Lift folks up, listen when loved ones (or strangers) want to talk, give when I have what someone else may need, plus myriad other manners of gifting myself to others as I should.

Those are the primary ways gifts is my word for 2020. Other similar yet smaller sorts of ways swirl about my head and heart, and I hope to do right by them all today, tomorrow, and each tomorrow to come through December 31.

Have you chosen a word for 2020?