A year ago we began filling our Family Happy Jar  with little reminders of the good things that happened throughout the year. We pledged to spend the year focussing on the positives and noting all the things that made us happy throughout 2016.

The year has flown by and we’ve watched the jar slowly (sometimes very slowly!) fill up with notes and I’ve been looking forward to reading them on NYE.

The first thing that became obvious is that we all had a slightly different style of writing. My notes were mini essays, mostly so scruffy as to be illegible (my excuse being that I do everything in a rush!) on paper ripped from the shopping list pad from the kitchen. Abbie’s were all beautifully written in coloured pens and neatly folded. Josh’s were mostly all written on the morning of NYE – he caught up on the year in one go. So they were a little briefer than mine and Abbie’s. And then there were Ad’s. These were in a different league – mostly one or 2 words on a scrappy bit of paper, no elaboration or explanation, no dates. And they were pretty much all of the same theme. He may have added about a dozen but at least half involved the Elan Valley and the rest revolved around camping.

Revisiting all of our good memories from 2016 was a fab way of celebrating the end of the year. We laughed, we cried (well I cried, the others have hearts of stone!) and remembered the good stuff.

The biggest smile came from one note in particular, read out by Abbie and not recognised or claimed by any of us. It appears our family visiting from America over the summer embraced our happy jar too!!

So what makes us Davieses happy? Abbie is at her happiest when she’s not at school or revising – perhaps not too surprising given GCSEs are looming. Almost every note began with “no school today”, “school holidays” or “revision free weekend”. Ad is even more easily pleased: camping, cycling, walking and anything Elan Valley related keeps him happy. I’m not sure we can place too much credibility on Josh’s notes since he wrote most of them on NYE! But the family holidays go down well with him. And me? Well 2 things stand out. If I’m doing things with my family I’m happy. Holidays, days out, walks – all a hit. But also exercising. I’d added at least 3 notes throughout the year to remind myself that running is good for me and that I have on occasion really enjoyed getting out there and doing it. And I needed that little reminder after not running much for the last 3 months.

So a new year begins and this year I will try and avoid my usual January blues by focussing on those that being most joy to my life – my family. With the odd run thrown in 😀