Are You Ready for July?

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Let's Talk About Celebration

Every year, the Fourth of July rolls around and I am reminded that I love low-maintenance celebrations.  Think about it.  You don’t need a signature cocktail.  You don’t need themed invitations.  You don’t need five side dishes and polished silver.  You just need a sparkler, a lawn chair and maybe something cold to drink. 

I love that about the Fourth.  It’s so wonderfully unfussy. People show up in T-shirts, ballcaps, and flip flops. If there is a dress code, anything red, white, and or blue works.  How cool is that?  Kids run around barefoot with popsicle-stained faces. At end of the day, everyone turns to the sky and says: Ooh. Aah.  Wow.  That’s it. That’s the celebration.  It’s not about impressing, it’s just about being there.

For so many of us, especially women, it’s one of the few holidays where we don’t have to be the ones in charge of the magic. We can just…show up.  We can take it in. We can sit on the curb or a blanket or a front porch and watch the joy happen.  Maybe we 

Let’swatch the local parade, pick food from a food both, or go on a carnival ride.  We get to participate instead of orchestrate.  (Okay, so we still do some of the orchestrating, but we’re not holding the reins of the whole production.)

Many of our holidays are full of details and doing things a certain way and making sure everyone is taken care of, but on the Fourth?  It’s a hot dog on a paper plate and a familiar song playing over speakers while kids chase fireflies. It’s catching up with friends, family, and a few neighbors. (insert loud exhale) It’s a lesson I never stop needing. Celebration doesn’t have to be complicated. 

So, here’s your invitation:

Let yourself enjoy the simplicity of this celebration.  Let the magic be what’s already here.

Here’s to sparklers, sidewalk chalk and staying put.  Here’s to celebrations that leave you full, not frazzled.  Here’s to the dazzle of the fireworks.

I’ll be cheering you on, while I ooh and aah over the fireworks.

Happy Fourth of July!