Creating New Holiday Traditions

And finding joy along the way.

This is the first year in my 33 on this earth that I’ve put up Christmas lights.

It made me so happy I cried.

This year is also the first time I’ve had a Christmas tree as an adult.

It’s tiny and ceramic and my fiancé and I painted it but it still counts.

We both cried when we put it on our TV stand and lit the tea light inside of it.

It’s a tiny, beautiful piece of Christmas tradition and we love it.

These two small things are actually part of something bigger: carving out a piece of Christmas tradition in our tiny little life.

And I couldn’t be happier.

This will be the second year in a row that I’ll be spending time with my fiancés family for Christmas.

There will be gifts (for my nephews), there will be chaos, there will be two little dogs and it will be perfect.

I don’t mean perfect in the Hallmark Christmas movie sense of the word.

I mean perfect in “perfectly what I need this year”.

It is equal parts bewildering and incredible that I get to have this little life for myself.

I get emotional just thinking about it.

Enjoying Christmas and letting myself revel in the spirit of the season is new for me.

Let’s dive into why that is and why this year (and hopefully many more in the future) are going to be different.