The chaos of Christmas finally seems to have died down in our home. After being in and out of a few different houses this week, I found a couple of quiet hours to sit in my living room by myself while the rest of my family napped and I tried to catch up on the loads of laundry that I had been putting off all week.

You know, sometimes in the middle of the holidays, things get so rushed and busy that it’s almost hard to really sit back and recognize what you’re actually feeling until after it’s all done. And as I sat there on the floor in the quiet of the afternoon, I felt a sudden rush of emotion. It happened when I looked around at the piles of clothes and scattered toys on the ground, the crumples of wrapping paper in the corner and the strands of tinsel buried in my carpet. In that moment, I just felt so immensely grateful for the mess around me and that I get to be a part of it.

Does that even make any sense?

As I sat there on the floor surrounded by my family’s mess, I picked up my daughter’s Moana doll and just sobbed. I mean really, what did I even do to deserve all of this? I GET to sort these socks and pants and onesies. I GET to comb the tangles out of Moana’s hair. I GET to put the caps back on all of the markers. I GET to sweep my floors and scrub my toilets and wash my dishes. I GET to spend over an hour doing our bedtime routine with my kids. I GET to clean up after my husband and I GET to serve him. And I GET to do these seemingly mundane things for my family every single day.

I GET to love my family. They have been entrusted into my care. They have been given to me, mess and all. And as we enter into the 2018 year, I want to cling to these feelings of gratefulness. And while most of the time I will tell you that our emotions are indicators and not dictators, I want this emotion to be a dictator for me.

Gratefulness in the messiness for the everyday mama and wife changes everything. Let’s choose to see past the mess and be grateful that we get to call it ours this new year, friends. I think we will all be a little more joyful because of it.