"Your Best Day Ever?"

One of my stress-busters during the “holiday season” is to watch syrupy, formula Christmas movies with my wife, Jill.  She selects the best of Hallmark or Lifetime, all of which follow pretty much the same plot. Someone loves Christmas; someone else threatens to ruin Christmas; a “miracle” happens to transform the “Scrooge” character so that he or she saves Christmas. And I cry at the end every time. I cannot help myself. I see it coming but, anyway, bam, they get me.  Besides the redeeming value of taking my mind completely away from everything else for 90 minutes, every once in a while there is a memorable line, like this one spoken by the Christmastide fan to the Scrooge-character: “What was your best day ever? When you don’t know you can fail; you can smell it; taste it; you know you can hit it out of the park?”

Which got me thinking about what was my best day ever?  What is the meaning of “best” anyway? Does it mean “most memorable”? “Most life-altering?” “Most fun?” And then I started wondering, would my best day ever be a day about what happened to me, or what happened to someone else, someone I love?  Is “best” defined by the best slice of pizza I ever ate or the best hotel I ever stayed at or the most romantic night I ever had with my wife?  It is really hard to select one day out of a 59 years.  The easy answer, is of course, my wedding day, and the days my children and grandsons were born.  But, for purposes of this quiz, let’s exclude those days.  What were the elements of your best day ever? Why?

I find it easier to reflect in shorter blocks of time. Like today: I am going to spend the day with our son and grandsons watching the Badgers play basketball in Madison. Or Christmas Eve, listening to our daughter share a Christmas meditation and two daughters in the faith meditate in word and song about the incarnation. Or Thanksgiving Day, having spaghetti in the box meal with Jill in a hotel room followed by a winter walk in the downtown area looking for stores opening early.  All “best days.” 

As you reflect on the year gone by, was there a day or a few days which jump off the calendar at you? Who was there? Where were you? What were you doing?  And then say a prayer of thanksgiving for that experience, for the blessing of God upon that day, that time, those people.  On you.  And wonder, is my best day ever still to come?