Written December 24, 2022

Growing up, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were a whirlwind of family, meals, running around and singing despite not one of us being able to carry a tune. It was 30+ hours of bliss that felt magical year after year, and even into adulthood as only holidays as a guest can feel.

In pictures today looked magical. In person, it has felt so heavy. I woke up with a stress headache that I seem to get more and more often; the kind that sits over your eye and holds steady all day long. The only real remedy is a night of sleep, and it was a long 13 hours from morning to night. We had moments of magic and stretches of reality and even though I know not every day can be magical, it felt like today should have felt better than it did.

For anyone else who wasn’t feeling so magical today and had hoped for a more festive outcome, here’s to us. We did the best we could with the tools we had and one way or another we got through it. We know tomorrow is a new day and we need to go to bed as early as is available to us tonight. And should tomorrow be tough, we’ll keep going to figure out a way to bring back some magic, even if it means it’s next week, month, or year.

Merry December 24th. After all, it’s just one of 365 days available to us and who says January can’t offer up some merriment too.