Love


Celebrating Love

December holidays are a great time for celebrating love. It might be love for your family – chosen or by blood. Perhaps you celebrate love for your community with donations and volunteer work. Or maybe you’re celebrating love of the romantic sort, with an engagement or wedding.

This time of year is the most popular time for engagements, followed closely by Valentine’s Day. If you’re celebrating love with an engagement this month – Congratulations! Gathering with family and friends at the holidays provides a great opportunity to share the news of your plans to marry.

If this holiday season includes an engagement, you have the exciting work of planning your wedding in front of you. I encourage you to savor the months of your engagement as a wonderful time for you as a couple. You’ll have the opportunity to decide what your wedding vision is, what your priorities are, and how to make them a reality.

Perhaps you’re celebrating love with a holiday wedding this year. Your planning is nearly complete, and the big event is almost here. You’re celebrating love as you cross the threshold into your new chapter as a married couple.

No matter what kind of love you’re celebrating this season, pause to enjoy your time together. In the quiet of a winter evening, or surrounded by the lights of season, let your love glow!


The Importance of Celebrating Love

The importance of celebrating love cannot be overstated. Even as the pandemic continues to rage in our country, celebrating love with the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday, with engagements and with weddings this year is crucial to our experience as humans.

If we accept the importance of celebrating love as a major milestone in our lives, we then need to decide how to do that. Couples may celebrate anniversaries of first dates or the first exchange of “I love you’s”. Later in their relationships, proposals made be planned and executed. The period of time between proposal and wedding known as the engagement is another celebration of love.

During the engagement period most couple’s reflect seriously on what a lifetime commitment means to them. They may move in together and make the adjustments necessary to lovingly share space. And of course, they usually plan their wedding.

Wedding plans are going to be challenging again this year due to COVID, and some couples may choose to plan a 2022 wedding hoping to avoid restrictions and worries. No matter how large or small the celebration, no matter how short or long the planning cycle is, the wedding day will arrive. On that day, the couple will stand in front of a few or many of their loved ones and publicly voice their commitment to each other. They will demonstrate the importance of celebrating love in a way uniquely their own because they are unique, their relationship is unique, and the future in front of them is unique.

So with the Valentine’s Day holiday upon us, let’s remember the importance of celebrating love … even when a pandemic is making life extra challenging. Love will prevail, couples will get engaged and marry, and life will go on! So this weekend, lift a toast To life and love!