Daily Gratitude Challenge Day 10: Traditions and Events

In an effort to inject some positivity into my daily mindset and the online world I have created a Daily Gratitude Challenge and I am inviting everyone to participate. If you have missed my introductory post that explains the challenge and maps out the daily post schedule, visit here.

Day 10 of the Daily Gratitude Challenge is all about the traditions and events that you are grateful for. Whether these have been established based on faith, nationality or annual routines that have simply been formed over time, this is an opportunity to focus on them in more detail.

Traditions and Events I am Grateful For

Pancake Day. The Bloke goes out to buy bananas (I always have bananas and chocolate spread on my pancakes) as there are inevitably never any bananas in the cupboard on that particular day, despite the fact that we always seem to have bananas for the rest of the year. I make pancakes, we eat round one of the pancakes while standing up in the kitchen as I’m making round two of the pancakes, we sit down with the next set of pancakes and then The Bloke spends about half-an-hour cleaning up the kitchen as I always manage to use every cooking implement in the house. We both spend the rest of the evening feeling sick.

Halloween. We buy a big bag of sweets, lock the door, turn the lights off and ignore the trick-or-treaters.

Remembrance Day. I generally buy about six poppies a year as I like to wear them weeks in advance and always lose them, and I always watch the full service at the Centotaph and observe the two minute silence.

Pride. The Birmingham Pride celebrations are a photographer’s dream and the atmosphere is amazing. The Bloke goes to pride every year, takes hundreds of photos, spends the rest of the day editing his favourites and then shares them on his Instagram. I love the feedback he gets from it.

Eurovision. This has become an annual obsession, particularly now the semi-finals are broadcast. During the semi-finals we watch the shows and rank them in order of who we would like to go through to the finals. On the evening of the final we eat antipasti (and I always manage to explode a Camembert in the oven), we watch all of the performances in the tiny hope that our performer will do well while laughing at Graham Norton’s commentary, raise a glass to Sir Terry Wogan at Song Nine, we start to watch the voting and quickly realise that everyone still hates us (seriously, we could resurrect the Beatles and have them perform with One Direction and we would still come last), The Bloke falls asleep, I wake him up when it is over, he has a little rant about how unfair the voting is and then we go to bed. Every. Single. Year.

Christmas also follows the same routine every year. The tree goes up while wrestling various decorations away from the cat and listening to Christmas songs, I make a list of foods to purchase in preparation for Christmas dinner and then inevitably forget half of it when I go shopping, we end up eating the ‘don’t-eat-before-Christmas-Twiglets’ about two days after they have been purchased (although we managed to leave them alone for six days last year – a new record), The Bloke gets a large, stuffed turkey breast from Marks and Spencer (there are only two of us so a whole turkey would be an enormous waste) and I always find the perfect present that I should have bought for someone on Christmas Eve, but by then it is too late to order it.

New Year’s Eve generally follows the Eurovision pattern. We avoid going out, get the snacky treats in, I cook us a nice dinner and then we watch a film and some of whatever NYE concert is being broadcast on the TV (the best so far has been Queen with Adam Lambert). The Bloke and the cat fall asleep, I wake them up about ten minutes before midnight and then we watch the fireworks from the Thames, sing Auld Lang Syne (the cat is included) and then we go to bed. Last year was slightly interrupted by the neighbours drunkenly deciding to set off a whole bunch of fireworks in the middle of everyone’s cars and run around screaming and smashing bottles on the ground, but generally it is a peaceful evening.

New Year’s Day. I finally allow myself to open my new Bullet Journal and spend most of the day setting up my new spreads and working out my goals for the year. Want to know how to set up a new Bullet Journal? Visit here.

Want to participate in the Daily Gratitude Challenge?

There are lots of ways in which you can participate in the Daily Gratitude Challenge:

Write a blog post about the advice that you are most grateful for and share it in the comment section below.
Share your posts in my daily link-ups on my Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #DailyGratitudeChallenge.
Share your images for the topic of the day on Instagram, tag my Instagram account (@suzie81speaks) and use the hashtag #DailyGratitudeChallenge and I will share as many as I can on my Instagram stories.
Join my Pinterest Group Board and share your Daily Gratitude posts.