Why save toasts for holidays and rare milestones? New Year and all the other traditional holidays when toasts are made only come once a year. The last wedding I went to was about 10 years ago, and the next one might not be until the DD gets married. Instead of waiting for an occasion to raise a glass to, we should raise our glasses and create occasions to celebrate.
My family has gotten into doing this in the last couple of months. As we sit down for dinner, we’ll raise our glasses — no bubbles in a fluted glass, just cold milk or maybe beer or wine — to something good or positive in our day. Here are some things we’ve toasted to:
- celebrating a good swim or run (*gasp*pant*)
- getting through a(nother) test at school
- good deeds
- finishing a blog post
- finishing a project
- friends
- meeting a goal
- surviving the week
- the dinner in front of us
- the rain (we live in California, a.k.a. Land O’Lakebeds)
You get the idea. We’re not curing cancer or achieving world peace, but each of these small accomplishments deserve a nod. And we’re not religious, so we don’t say grace over our meal, but pausing for a moment to acknowledge what is going well in our lives, or what we are thankful for, transcends religion and feeds our spirits. According to psychological studies, participating in rituals before eating increases our enjoyment of food. Maybe that’s one reason why the family has been saying that dinner tastes so good 
What will you raise your glass to at dinner tonight?
Source: “To Savor the Flavor, Perform a Short Ritual First,” in Association for Psychological Science. Published: July 22, 2013. Accessed: May 18, 2014. <http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/to-savor-the-flavor-perform-a-short-ritual-first.html>