Watching the World Cup final with my college sons!
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I am still beaming thinking about what a complete joy this past weekend was. My D20 arrived home for her break and my SIL and her family of 4 came to stay with us for a weekend of food, games, family fun and gift-giving, which culminated in my MIL’s Hanukkah party for the entire, extended, blended family. It was such a special time. Collectively, our extended family has had plenty of challenges and drama and it often feels that our “Hallmark moments” are few and far between, so to have a whole weekend of love and joy was extra nice.
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I prefer to play pickleball outside, even if it’s fairly cold, but if it’s windy it’s really difficult. Fortunately our county has indoor areas where we can play, so we can play all year. We did it for only the second time this morning, and my group is willing to continue there when we need to. Yay, we can keep playing together.
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I have plans to see my daughter tomorrow, Wednesday, this weekend, and one day next week! She’s so busy with multiple jobs and projects that this is a blessing. The hospital said we can Zoom with my son this weekend, too. 
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My son has a TON of socks, including some brand new, that he said he didn’t want and asked me to donate them. Just this morning someone put a call out to our neighborhood for socks to go to a homeless shelter. So happy people who really need them will get his socks.
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My joy is holding my 7 month old grandson. Having the brisket and the latkes turn out good. Truly enjoying my son’s in-laws.
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Just barely warm enough to walk today, but cold enough that it felt like a good day to break out the Trader Joe’s apple cider for a warm drink when I came in.
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Full of joy tonight as I head to bed. Ds2 is in town and we went to lunch, then shopping then watched a movie he’d never seen (original True Grit) and then, per his request, our family’s favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Then he broke out the guitar and played some of his original music and spent a little time looking at photo albums. I love that I like my grown kids so much.
Oh, and he won at least $1k in his fantasy football pool!
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The World Cup brought me joy also. And then, to celebrate Argentina, DH and I watched Evita that night and sang along.
Also giving me joy - I put up a 4’ fake tree with white lights in my bedroom/office. I’m in there a lot and really enjoying the glow!
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D17 has five girls coming over after school today for a Secret Santa exchange and to make Christmas cookies.
Joyful to me, because almost a year ago, mean girl/Queen Bee “friend” started excluding D17 from her friend group until it was obvious they no longer wanted to hang out with her. Fortunately, she found a new friend group with nice girls, not an easy thing to do as a senior.
This is the first time I’ll be meeting most of the girls. She goes to a private school 30 mins away that draws from all over the area. Most of the time when she gets together with her friends, it’s in a more centralized location. I’m happy they are all coming here so I can finally meet them.
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It has been interesting to myself personally, to note that I found more opportunities for gratitude in November than JOY in December. Maybe it’s been a bit of a harsh month? Maybe JOY is a lesser occurrence than gratitude?
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I find joy in my faith. I describe it as my bedrock. It differs from happiness, which is dependent on circumstances.
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This is certainly true for me. I am grateful for so much in my life, and generally operate on a low-level of contentment setting at most times 
but moments of joy (as I define it) are much more rare occurrences (which is probably why they are so precious).
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I think it means that you have the ability to see good in life, be thankful for the blessing in life big and small. That’s a helpful life attitude, so much better than the people that seem to fixate on the bad things around them.
Methinks if it were gardening season, we’d all be posting joys found in our yards 
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All true I think! I hope.
I do think for me I think of JOY as more of an outstanding occasion. A moment of fun whimsy. More than fun though because it’s maybe also emotion filled. Which I guess with those standards (that I have defined for myself), joy maybe isn’t a daily occurrence!
But I love reading others postings of joy! And it’s ok that we all see it differently.
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Joy for me today was practicing yoga. Being in the studio or outside by the lake (in summer) is so much better than practicing alone. There is sort of an energy in the group which is very hard to describe.
Today I went for a hike with a friend, at a new place. They had several owls there. I was glad I got to see them (the joy part), but it made me sad that they were in an enclosure as opposed to loose in the park. I don’t know why they are there. I’m hopeful it’s some type of sanctuary or rehab for owls.
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I saw a bumper sticker today that gave me joy. It said, “May God’s blessings fall upon us like snow this Christmas.” We’re about to get dumped on, so I’ll just have to look at it as blessings.
On the other hand, I’m glad I was able to get our aerobics instructor to play secular music today, after a woman in our class told me she hates Christmas music.
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Update on the owls I mentioned above. They are brained damaged or missing eyes, so wouldn’t survive on their own.
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@abasket - Try thinking of the question as “what brings you happiness”
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