New Year’s Eve & The Awesome Jar

I know it sounds like a Harry Potter-esque adventure, but actually it’s a little tradition at our house — The Awesome Jar.

Throughout the year, each family member details the moments they have considered awesome. Paper and pen live in the jar, and the jar is open for business all year. Little notes with the date on them detail the thoughts and events. Normally, the jar is cracked open New Year’s Eve. Over a family breakfast, we go round the table lucky dipping, reading the notes out loud and reliving the memories.

The written contents can include anything. The only condition for inclusion is that it made you think ‘that’s awesome!’. It might be hearing the unexpected perfect song, kicking a work goal or just something that made you laugh.

In between Antipodean fires and floods, and now coronavirus, frankly 2020 has been light-on in terms of awesome. While there are definitely moments of gratefulness, we’ve expanded Awesome Jar conditions to become the ‘This Will Be Awesome Jar’. 

We’re each adding things that will be awesome to do once the world rights itself (well, a little at least) and we’re free from our hibernation. The jar has become a little roadmap that holds the promise of ‘after’. 

So far I’ve included hugging family and friends, enjoying a rosé under the twinkling lights of our local wine bar, having a funky new haircut, driving the Great Ocean Road, and having friends over for dinner.

Small things, once taken for granted, that will be absolutely awesome again.