Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Many of us have experienced various forms of loss from loved ones to jobs to… You get the idea.
Lets stop for a moment and reflect on what we are grateful for in this year, and if you like what your looking forward to in the new year.
I’ll Kick us off.
I am grateful for Family (and old fashion style cameras)
I’m grateful that though my father is no longer with us, I got to live in a world with him in it.
I’m grateful that I’m living in a nice house with great people, and despite the pandemic am able to pay my bills.
I’m grateful for art, and singing, and food, and the internets, and love, and laughter, and that life is good TM.
I am so grateful for having a home and heat and water and everything that makes my life easy…easier than many. I am grateful that we lost no one dear to us in this pandemic. Please take this in the right way too…I am grateful that my parents did not have to face the pandemic…being lonely…possibly getting sick…and everyone being so worried about them. I am grateful that all of my family and close friends are not suffering financially. I still greatly miss the instantaneous hugging when those whom I love are near. I miss that a lot. The pandemic has not stifled love nor creativity…and for that too, I am so thankful.
Wishing every darned last one of you great people a most wonderful Christmas and to us all…a better than ever New Year.
I’m grateful for the love I’ve known, the people I’ve met, the things I’ve gotten to learn, the things that surprised me… (ie: everything)…even challenging experiences teach us something, and build our strength and character. 
(Fabulous idea for a thread, @Thumper369!)
During 2021 I have learned to use some additional powerful ways to heal, that couldn’t have happened without the chaos of Covid. And surprisingly enough, the other (paid) business has been phenomenal…so there probably isn’t anyone as blessed as I am on the planet. It was a tremendous amount of work, with an initial near-vertical learning curve, but I’m now looking forward to the future with great enthusiasm.
And I hope everyone else is as lucky. 2022 is going to be something to remember. 
My good fortune spans decades. The calamity of the pandemic has brought focus to it. Being retired gifted me with financial and health security - as I watched so many others lose jobs, homes, and loved ones. I can hardly believe the position I’m in, safe and secure while others have had their world disintegrate around them. The word “gratitude” somehow falls short of what I feel.
Compare your position with those poor souls that just had tornados shred their lives in minutes. We needn’t look far to find a cascade of reasons in our lives to be grateful. It is way too easy to blindly take things for granted.
I have grown to appreciate the trials and lessons I have wandered into across life, each has contributed to making me who I am. Pay no attention to the scars, life has been good to me.
I am most grateful for that woman who gave me her future 42 years ago and thereby set my life on a new course. The family that blossomed from that is my greatest treasure and is really the only reason I was ever here at all.
@Thumper369, Thank you for giving me cause to contemplate my good fortune, I have more in my life than one man deserves. 
I’m grateful for my crazy life where nothing ever happens the way I thought it would but it always works out in the end somehow. And also for my husband who is right there with me when I spontaneously decide I have to have a Glowforge, or another dog, or that we need to pull up roots, sell our (second) “forever” house, and move across the country to help out my parents, and who indulges my never-ending string of new hobbies and doesn’t think I’m (too) crazy when a frog moves into our bathroom sink and I feed it crickets and won’t let anyone wash their hands in there. AND he brings me coffee in bed every single morning. And I’m grateful for my 3 awesome kids who have all found their soulmates and built happy lives with them, and most especially for my two gorgeous grandkids! 
Oh, yeah, and I’m pretty grateful for brothers like @timjedwards , too. 
I am so grateful for my husband and our family. I’m especially thankful for the time with our grandchildren.
I have many outlets for creating and sharing my love of it … I am very blessed.
Merry Christmas to all of my fellow Glowforge people!!
Thank you @Thumper369 !!
I’m grateful for the wonderful family God has given me. I have 2 wonderful sisters and we are blessed to be able to travel together each year on a trip where we leave our hubbies at home and have such a good time. I have 3 wonderful children who are the apple of my eye, but probably not as much as the 6 grandchildren they have given me…they are truly the center of my life. And, of course, my husband of 39 years who puts up with me everyday!
Merry Christmas to you all. You’re a great group to be around and I learn something every single day!
I understand this 100%. My father-in-law died in 2019 and was better for not suffering through 2020. He would absolutely not understood Covid, the restrictions, or anything at all about last year. My wife would have been traumatized knowing he was suffering and she couldn’t even see him & give him a hug.
Agree with this in spades.
And this. We just celebrated 40 years. We were kids and yet we grew together and I certainly would most likely not have lived this long had she not exerted a calming influence on my more dangerous impulses.
Mostly I’m thankful that all of my problems are 1st world problems. And honestly the same is true for all of my kids and almost all of my friends. We take for granted how little our troubles mean in reality despite our inflated sense of their import at the time.
Wisdom. It was Granfatherhood that opened my eyes.
“Wanna play Dad?”
I’m busy right now son…"
Grandpas don’t make that mistake twice.
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