This Season

I made it an absolute that Christmas lights, stockings, and an advent calendar were going up this year. It seems that life altering events cement the desire for traditions, setting new ones, creating old ones. Perhaps you’ve gotten married, adopted a dog, had your first baby. Traditions set the rhythm of the year, their steady recurrence a promise that we’re starting or ending seasons with celebration. We spent so many holidays during our childhood walking through Candy Cane Lane, a neighborhood ablaze with its synchronistic commitment to over-the-top light displays;  while I didn’t necessarily long for the 60 ft Snoopy towering over my roof, I loved the California winter wonderlands twinkling in the trees as we walked through hot cocoa in hand. The plans to bundle up (okay, Midwestern friends, cue your laughs) signaled to me that we were commemorating something together again. Traditions.

The holiday season, whatever you’re celebrating, is the perfect time to pause and consider what it is that brings you back year after year. Is it trimming the tree to jazz and hot cocoa? The ornament exchange with loved ones? The reading of the Christmas story to your littles as they sit in this year’s matching reindeer PJs? I’m marking a big red X over pouring through meaningless gift guides and thoughtless gift giving. I want the things that take my time, effort, and money to create something magical that reminds me of why we’re here and what it means to do this life alongside one another. 

Does this ring true for you, too?

merry merry,
pat