It's The Little Things...

It's Christmastime, so it's time to reflect on the past year. Personally, I'd rather reflect on the happy things than the sad ones. So, what are the seemingly little things in life that make you happy? We all have those small, innocuous events of daily life that snap us out of our stupors, what's yours? Is it the first time you light up the Christmas lights on your tree or in your home. Is it setting a certain ornament on your tree, or lighting the last candle on your menorah? Maybe, for you, your happy feelings don't necessarily come from a holiday tradition, but from something simpler.

For me, it's ice. I don't actually like ice, necessarily. Most of the time, ice merely waters down a drink and ruins it, in a sense. No, when I say ice, I mean a specific ice. The ice that makes me stop and smile is crushed ice; specifically, crushed ice in water.

I don't really enjoy drinking excessively cold drinks. Truth be told, I don't even really like drinking water (though, I drink it because I need to). But I love filling up a cup with crushed ice and a little water. I love listening to the ice as it cracks, which can from time to time be more pronounced than others. I love that with crushed ice, the water fuses the individual pieces together, forming a giant iceberg-like island of icy goodness floating amid the water.

I love breathing into the cup, seeing my breath as it gets trapped between the floating mass of ice and my face. I like to think of it as it's own small island, harboring perhaps its own breed of Lilliputians. (By the way, can you believe the travesty they're turning Gulliver's Travels into?). Sometimes, I just let the ice sit there, wobbling about in the water, for these reasons. I don't like to think of the melting away of their island homes. I don't like to think of me drinking their water, their homes. I don't like to think of them as being trapped, or like they are my playthings. No, because by then, I think they're gone, just like we will one day, when the sun explodes engulfing Earth in its wake. I certainly hope that when that day comes, no one is left; just like those little ice-bound Lilliputians.