Finding Fun ways to express your Joy for Life, Family and all that you have to be grateful for this Festive Season, 99FM’s MYD Art spoke to Gloria Izaks the Namibian author of the book, “How to Create Everlasting Joy” to spark our creativity. Gloria has prepared the following piece filled with fun ideas to share with the ones you love.
Eat, Play and Love by Gloria Izaks
Eat, Play and Love is equivalent to festive season joys. The challenge is to remain joyful throughout the festive season of increased spending, excessive eating, many visitors, overfull restaurants, bars and beaches/pools and no time for you!
The most important person to spoil this year is YOU; yes YOU…for everyone else is taken care of and have received their dues and gifts, now remaining just you. The rush is over, work is done, and it’s time for a break and the long overdue REST (R=Reflection; E=Evaluation; S=Solitude and T=Time Management)
It is at this time of year that I personally love to take time for an annual reflection. I will take my book and pen and take a walk through memory lane, revisiting each month and the highlights thereof. I jot the good and not so good and most importantly express my gratitude for both, because it is in the comforting moments that one feels loved and in the discomfort and disagreement that one grows. Growing is necessary for the soul, because without pain where would souls go to school?
However, this time of year is not only about reflection but also about communing with the ones we love. In my family we have many traditions we like to enjoy together at this time of year.
We love to enjoy cocktails together in the summer months and so I’ve compiled some of our family favourites just for you.
Gloria’s Cocktail of the Summer – A Mojito with a twist.
A Mojito is a traditional Cuban drink and usually consists of five ingredients, namely white rum, sugar, lime juice, sparking water and mint.
The truly Gloria version uses ginger beer/ginger ale, litchi juice and soda water, mint, lime or lemon and ice.
To make this cocktail you’ll need to add the ingredients like the lime juice to the sugar and mint leaves and gently mash together using a muddler. Then rum is added and the mixture along with the juice or sparking water and ice.
Another great option for a cocktail this summer is the Piña colada, which is the official drink of Puerto Rico
Gloria’s Family and Friends Table Fun
My other most favourite festive joy is to practice my creativity and getting busy with table decorations or creating the ambiance and atmosphere for the night together with family and friends. While each of us can go wild with our likes and that which our budget allows, mine is done with what is available in and around the house and garden. Candles are always a must for the occasion and will lead the theme. For a recent event we wanted to celebrate love in Africa and earth colors, animal prints, guinea fowl feathers, brown paper bags with sand and served as candle stands was the answer. Everywhere was a hint of orange, yellow and red telling of the birth of a new year, a new day and the warmth of life waiting on the other side of the clock.
Playing is the other thing that makes us truly joyful and so playing games at your event is a great idea for laughter and fun.
We usually ask friends to bring childhood photos and we play the guessing game of who-z-who? Or we challenge each other to use an adjective starting with your own name to describe a character trait of another friend, this is great to build relationships as well as have a good laugh. To do this, you’d for example have Jane describe Kirsty as “joyful Kirsty” and Cindy can describe her as “caring Kirsty”.