My Nanny is an excellent cook, she’s better than your Grandmother, I know that for sure. Our family is super close, but every holiday we spend together is a “come for the fellowship but stay for the food” kinda deal. Listen y’all, I would move mountains (or push any of my cousins out of the way) for her dressing. 

Here’s the thing. Although most of her food is knock-your-socks-off good, she makes this pale green colored abomination called “fluff,” that makes me want to gag just looking at it. She includes it in every menu for someone, but I avoid it like the plague. Well, let me tell you what I would NEVER do: complain about the whole darn meal just because there's a bowl of fluff among the spread. That would be insane! She spends weeks shopping, prepping, and cooking every meal just to make sure that everyone gets all their favorite dishes. 

I know Thanksgiving is still four months away, so why am I talking about all this? I’ll tell ya. 

I was scrolling through Facebook last week and saw a post about a certain coffee shop chain coming to town. It was big news for our small town. In the comment section, expectedly, there were strong opinions all around. The post has over 350 comments and 113 shares to date.

Later in my scroll I saw another post from a friend taking some playful jabs at the common complaints that frequent our community social media pages.  Although this post appeared to be light hearted and fun, others did not interpret it that way. Ultimately the creator took it down, but before it was removed I was able to read a few of the comments.

I was pleasantly surprised to see some interesting facts were brought to light. Good ole White House Police Chief, Patrick Brady, chimed into the conversation with some positivity.

“Don’t listen to the noise, just go to Stay Positive News! We have so much going on and so much to appreciate. We had our Americana Festival last weekend with thousands of people loving life and enjoying themselves. And guess what? We had zero calls for service to the police department! We are truly blessed with a great community.”

First of all, why didn’t I think of throwing out a shameless plug? 

Secondly, thousands of people gathered and zero calls to the PD? Let that sink in. Zero disturbances, zero issues. Just a good clean-good time for everyone who was there– that’s some positive news worth sharing!

If you listen to what mainstream media has to say, that seems impossible. But we know that it’s certainly feasible. Chief Brady’s comment, in the context of that post, prompted me to reach out to him to find out more.  

“We have not had an incident at the Americana Festival in years,” Chief Brady said. “I really, in my heart, believe that even though we have had tremendous growth, the character of this city has not changed.” 

Although I was already impressed knowing that the Americana Festival attendance was in the  thousands and without incident, I called the White House Area Chamber of Commerce, who sponsored the event, to get further comments. President and CEO Mandy Christenson cited another example of our community’s awesomeness.

“Volunteers had everything set up. Tents, tables, chairs, and signage in anticipation of vendor arrivals at 1:30 pm. A big storm hit at approximately 1 pm destroying tents and blowing items around. Staff from Kona Ice, The Magic Dog Bus, and WHPD Sgt. Eric Enck jumped into action in the middle of the wind and downpour to help chamber staff and volunteers save what they could,” said Mandy. 

Honestly, are we really shocked that all those people pitched in to help? Of course not. Our city is full of really great people, just waiting to help someone in need! 

Side bar, if you see any of these folks out and about, make sure to thank them for taking one for the team. I bet their rain soaked shoes were really squishy. Noone likes squishy shoes.   

I could go on and on about how great our community is, but the bottom line is this: the little things are not worth complaining over. 

I’m not telling y’all we can’t complain sometimes. Your life, my life, our community— none of it is perfect. Differences in opinion are good. Varying points of view provide the checks and balances needed to allow progress and tradition to coexist. 

I’m not attempting to improve on my Nanny’s traditional Thanksgiving dressing, nor am I spending time worrying about her fluff. We have A LOT to celebrate within our community, and while there’s always going to be room for improvement, we can’t lose sight of just how blessed we are. 

We can voice our concerns from a place of love and gratitude just as easily as we can complain. We can stand in the gaps instead of pointing fingers at those who we think should fill them. 

We can spend more time looking for the good around us and doing our part to help out where we can. We can Stay Positive because the opposite won’t do anybody a darn bit of good.