Hope you all had a good Christmas holiday and are ready for 2026!
Since we’ve talked about g-words recently (grace and grief), I thought I’d write about another g-word that tends to come up at this time of year: gratitude. Gratitude is a slippery word, because it’s defined as “a state of being grateful,” or “thankfulness.” Its meaning as a noun is actually related to an adjective. When you look up the meaning of grateful, it goes back to gratitude: “expressing gratitude.” So both gratitude and grateful are interrelated with thankfulness, something we often only consider at Thanksgiving.
But I think the New Year is also a good time of year to examine the gratitude you’ve experienced and shared during the year. Not for what you get for Christmas (in our house, the fewer the presents the better), but for something in your life that’s happened since January of 2025. Perhaps even just one small thing sparked gratitude? Or maybe you’ve had an amazing year and there are too many things to count that you’re grateful for.
How do you find gratitude? From people going out of their way to make things right for you, or providing unexpected gifts—and not always of the material kind. From poems that kindle meaning within you that glows with purpose. From everyday small acts of kindness. From the natural world: so many things to see and be astonished by. Mary Oliver’s Gratitude Poem is about training all of our senses on the natural world in gratitude. Many things can bring gratitude. Sometimes we only realize the depths of it with time, and often the source of that gratitude doesn’t realize their impact.
My gratitude goes out to my husband. He is with me through lows and highs, he talks about book ideas with me, he reminds me of my counselling tools when I’m struggling, he takes on a disproportionate amount of the housework, and more.
My gratitude is also deep for our dog, Silah. She is my companion through day-long naps and walks up and down the street. She alerts us to strangers walking by (a little too vociferously). She keeps me from melting into my armchair and becoming one with the fabric with her regular requests to go outside and check bunny tracks. As A.A. Milne wrote in Winnie the Pooh: “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
I also have enduring gratitude for my writing friends. Their willingness to travel long distances to meet in the Rockies and celebrate my book launch gave me astronomical gratitude. Who has friends who would do that? Especially as most of us had never met in person before.
Gratitude also for Cobble Hill Mountain—while I haven’t been there much lately, I am grateful for the nature I’ve seen and followed through the seasons.
My counsellor talks about having gratitude even for the small things, like not having to go back to bed after breakfast, or managing to get out for a walk. If I can cultivate gratitude for these small things, the idea is that I’ll boost my spirits and feel a bit better. I did get out for a walk today and was grateful that it didn’t rain, and that I’d done it. Baby steps.
But gratitude isn’t just about you. It’s about how you can inspire it in others. What have you done for someone lately that you think might have made them thankful? My husband made exquisite Christmas cards this year using pen and ink and watercolour techniques. I know their recipients were grateful, as they’ve had nothing but good things to say about them.
The New Year is not just about looking back, but also looking ahead. What will you do to spark gratitude in someone else’s life? How can you build your own grateful, gratitude-filled life? Maybe the key is to be open to encounters with gratitude. To be grateful for the small things and pass that on to others. To be part of a something like a gratitude chain that starts with you and cascades down to a whole line of people. Similar to what’s portrayed in the poem below.
So this New Year’s Eve, we can consider with gratitude the year behind us, and plan how we’ll fill 2026 with gratitude, gratefulness, and thankfulness.
