There’s something about the month of December that sends me into this restless anxiety about not having done enough before year-end. Which I *logically* know is a little silly, but the feeling comes about every year without fail.
So I registered to attend a Creative Mornings event in some halfhearted attempt to stave off this productivity guilt (and in hopes of hearing something inspiring). I haven’t attended one of these talks since pre-pandemic, but the format has stayed pretty much the same: every month, speakers are invited to come and talk about a chosen theme. This event’s theme was Abundance.
“Abundance is a state of plenty. In an intensely competitive society, we often feel like we have the opposite. Capitalism breeds a mentality of scarcity — it’s hard to feel like we have enough when we’re constantly trying to accumulate more.”
Truthfully, I was not feeling abundant. I was feeling tired and numb. But what I enjoy about going to events like these is that you can literally just show up and listen. In a best case scenario, you might meet someone interesting or leave with something cool to talk about.
Anyway, I went. And perhaps because it was a rainy morning or because I was in some existential holiday funk, I left the auditorium feeling pretty much the same as I did a few hours before…tired! But later I found myself ruminating over a question posed to the audience before the main talk had begun.
“Do you have any rituals at the end of the year?”
One woman stood up and shared, “I make a list of all the things I put off doing this year and spend December making sure I cross those things off. Like mailing off a letter I wrote but never ended up sending.”
Maybe this question stuck with me because I envy the discipline of people who have a thing they stick with at the end or beginning of every calendar year. Setting intentions and resolutions. Bullet journaling! Sending Christmas cards. I think it surprises some people that I don’t have a set thing because I’m otherwise a relatively motivated person. Yet nothing about the New Year’s reset has stuck for me year after year. I want a meaningful end-of-year ritual, too!
I flew out of New York the next day, headed to my sister’s in New Mexico for the holidays. My parents and I have spent a few Christmases here over the last 5 years, so it’s a relatively familiar landscape. But the familiarity I feel is stemming from those past holidays spent together, not a familiarity in the way of a personal, sentimental attachment. Does that make sense?
Like – there’s a familiarity of knowing I’ll get picked up in my sister’s same black Camry. I know we’ll drive up the same winding roads and be greeted in the mudroom by an excited German Shepherd. But the location itself feels a bit agnostic to the holidays. It just so happens to be where our immediate family is gathering, which in and of itself is very significant because we all live in different places.
Though I guess it’s not just New Mexico that evokes this feeling for me. We spent one Christmas in Florida when I was in high school, which I’m pretty sure was my idea at the time. Another Christmas in Florida in 2017. New Mexico for the first time in 2018. Shanghai in 2019. Iowa (home) in 2020 and 2021.
So maybe this feeling is simply a part of growing up: missing the familiarities I’ve long associated with the holidays. These past Decembers have helped me realize that being in any place but my parents’ home for Christmas might always feel a bit foreign – partially because I miss certain comforts, and partially because it means accepting how things have and will continue to change for our family.
Everyone has different and complex feelings around this time of year, but all we actually get to see are the visible holiday rituals on social media. You know what I mean – the people who go and pick out an evergreen tree right after Thanksgiving, the families who get dressed up in matching PJs. The friends that do a white elephant or cookie exchange, the ones that meet up with everyone at their hometown bar. In a way, the things other people do year after year are also things I look forward to observing. They’re telltale markers of the holiday season…rituals that mean something to somebody.
And when things in life change, the holidays are a pretty clear reflection of which rituals get to stay the same and which ones must change. Change becomes evident as the year comes to a close. Your childhood home gets sold or you’ve moved, so you spend it in a new home. You’re newly engaged or newly single. You have to pick which side of the family gets which holiday. Beloved people and pets aren’t in the picture anymore. Newborns are. Deciding who to ring in the New Year with. Starting new traditions for yourself or with your partner. New rituals.
2022 was one of the only years I’ve skipped out on Thanksgiving with my family, aside from my freshman year of college. I took an international trip instead (and felt lowkey guilty about it for weeks leading up to that trip). But to date, I’ve spent all my 28 Christmases with my parents.
It’s a pretty simple holiday for our family – I know exactly what to expect. Some years we’ll put up a tree and some years we won’t. I’ll sleep in and wake up to the sound of my parents making oatmeal every morning (this is now followed by the giggling of my baby niece). We’ll sit in comfortable silence in the living room for hours, everyone happily occupied by their own devices.
So maybe my truest end-of-year ritual is showing up for Christmas with my parents. It’s the one thing that stays the same every year, even if I’m not sure where we might spend it.
Here are some of the other things that have stayed (pretty much) the same:
Our *big* meals are usually on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. We usually eat a simplified version of the classics. Lately, my mom has opted for roasting little Cornish hens instead of turkey. Sometimes we’ll do a Chinese hot pot for dinner (my favorite during a cold Midwest winter). I’ll set the table with whatever I can find at home, and I usually volunteer to help prep side dishes or dessert.
I watch at least one Gossip Girl Thanksgiving episode – usually “Blair Waldorf Must Pie!”
I accompany my dad on his Starbucks run. (I never go otherwise. I also suddenly become a sugary holiday latte person.)
My cousin sends an annual 1-page letter describing their nuclear family’s whatabouts. I often read it aloud with my parents so I can interpret any subtleties they might miss.
My dad lines our fireplace with all the holiday cards – literally any card someone has sent, even the obvious throwaway ones from the car dealership. (We’re not proactive when it comes to holiday cards…I don’t think we’ve ever sent printed ones. But he’ll always have a photo to reply with over email!)
At my mom’s request, we attend a local church service on Christmas Eve. Typically in-person candlelight services, but we’ve opted for virtual ones in the last few years. This is also the only reason I pack something to wear besides sweats.
We bake Pillsbury dough biscuits (the ones that come from a can) to eat on Christmas morning. I’m not sure why or when this started, but it’s the only time of year I remember they exist…
Our street does a small neighborly gift exchange! So wholesome. Each household sends someone to walk (or drive) up to each door to drop off their gift and exchange some pleasantries. The gifts range from homemade cookies and jams to gift cards and dish towels. My parents gift the same thing every year: Ferrero Rocher gift boxes. If I’m home, I’ll bundle up too and accompany them on this walk.
We started doing an extended family Zoom across many time zones during Thanksgiving weekend. This started in 2020, but I think it’ll continue on.
Until I wrote them all down, I never considered how these are the things that often make my year feel complete. Little holiday rituals that for whatever reason, I find personally meaningful.
And now I can see how rituals may not always be things you do because you already know they’re important to you. Some things become sacred simply because you’ve chosen to do them over and over again.
Wishing you all a warm and lovely January! Here’s to another year of discovering all the small things that just might end up meaning something more.
Fort Greene stair runs, with Christine or alone
Recycling my skincare empties (Nordstrom)
Making my tiny french press coffee at home before morning meetings
Late night roomie chats in between my door frame and kitchen counter
Hangover Court St. bagels (best consumed around our coffee table, debriefing the night before)
Meditative solo walks to the piers
Spontaneous Poppy’s runs for coffee and pastries with Vera
Getting a manicure (the only time I’ll sit and do nothing for an entire hour…)
Live processing an album / video release at midnight (and texting the friends you know who are also freaking out)
Celebratory or *just because* Hotel Dangers from Elsa, with Echo