Book Boyfriends, Hallmark Movies, and Bingo, Oh My!

As she anticipates a favorite seasonal activity, MaryBeth Eberhard considers the dangers of comparison and the gift of gratitude.

It’s that season, my friends! The season of fireside reading, movie marathons, and endless rounds of family Bingo. As the temperatures drops and the winds begin to blow outside, my heart does a little pitter patter as I harvest my books like a squirrel gathers acorns, save my movie countdowns, and prepare the family Bingo cards for the season.  

I am such a romantic at heart. I love a good happily ever after and can get lost in seeking one. I have seasons of reading voraciously and seasons where storage becomes low with all the movies I save for my viewing pleasure. Recognizing that I can go a little overboard with my enthusiasm, I ask myself if there is anything inherently wrong with this excitement and preparation. The answer is of course no, but as a wife of 27 years and a mother for 22, I have walked the slippery slope of comparison far too often to not be aware of quicksand and pitfalls where I get stuck. 

One of my favorite quotes is from Corrie ten Boom. In her book, The Hiding Place, she says, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I am pondering this more deeply than before as I make my lists of books and movies for the hunkering-down season. 

What is it about a Hallmark movie or a good romantic comedy that draws us in? I think it is the lightheartedness, the humor all written so compactly into 300 pages that we marvel at how it all fits together like a beautiful puzzle. We have the meet cute where our characters first see each other. We have a conflict (my children can list them out as they have watched so many: new job offer in big city; old romantic flame enters the scene). 

 Our stories are all not finished. We wonder at what our endings will be, awaiting our happily ever after, and we reminisce at our own meet cutes with the one we love. The reality is that our time on Earth is not meant to be so neat and tidy, and our stories are still being written — by us.  

I am the author of my very own rom-com, lived out daily

Episode titles come to mind. “Not today, Satan!” (where my husband was away and I took the endless night shifts and found myself stepping in cat poo); “Why not?”, when I found my young son taking a bath in the sink. “Hold tight” might be another as my husband and I weathered multiple gut-wrenching surgery rotations for two of our children who have a neuromuscular disease while parenting our other six children!  

Reality paints a profound picture of the beauty of the life we have been given, when we take the time to see it. In my many seasons, I have at times slipped into a lack of gratitude for the beauty of my own story. I have made edits, trying to be a mother or wife like one of the characters in a book I read or a movie I saw. How perfect life looked for them in those five pages, when they had such peace and order!  

Life isn’t lived out from a scripted page  

Lately, I look at my life more as one of those choose your own adventures with confession being the saving grace to begin again and choose a different path!  

This season, as I make our family Bingo cards where we dutifully check off each trope and expected plot twist, marketing insert, seasonal activity, and heartwarming family moment, I’m pondering what a more realistic one for my own family story might look like. The truth is: I get to choose. I get to make the board and smile as the inevitable events happen. I can even add some special ones to do something different.

Thinking this way begets a heart of gratitude for the life that is unfolding before us: our own rom-com with our daily meet cutes in the kitchen with our husband. We can sashay our hips as we brew that tea and laugh at each other’s dance moves over seasonal songs. Plot twist: oh heavens, yes. It is guaranteed! Will someone’s car get stuck in the snow? Will plans get cancelled? Will we roast marshmallows in the fireplace because it rained on our Fall campfire? Will a surprise guest arrive? (Can we make that happen? We are the authors, after all.)  

This season where families tend to gather and nostalgia tempts us, let’s look at our lives currently being lived out and write the next chapter with gratitude. Let us choose to see the wonder in our own stories and live it out in its beautiful messiness. This is the way to sainthood, one episode at a time.  

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Copyright 2024 MaryBeth Eberhard
Images: Canva