Last week, Lowi shared with you that she must course correct and employ her Un-Gathering Protocol this year. My holidays will be much different than they have been in the past. This has me thinking, too, about how holiday traditions can be fun and exciting but can also trip you up.

If your holiday isn’t the same as last year or you have a string of years with the same tried and true celebrations, it can be hard to let them go. You can tell yourself the story that somehow this next holiday will be less than because it’s different.

As Lowi has said, it doesn’t help. It only makes you focus on what you believe you are missing. This year, I will be spending Thanksgiving with two of Lowi’s three daughters. I have never done that! The last time I saw them was for a whirlwind graduation party in May, and before that, I cannot even remember!

My Thanksgiving will be in a new location with new people, but that doesn’t mean it will be sad or depressing. It will simply be different. Will I miss seeing the rest of my family and my husband? Of course, but life is full of trade-offs. I am trading being with one part of my family to be with another. I think that’s a fairly solid deal.

It will be the same with Christmas. I will have my first Tennessee Christmas in our new house with John. Everything about my life right now tends toward the new and unfamiliar. I won’t lie; sometimes, that takes a lot more mental energy and work to figure out, but having fresh experiences is good for us. It shows us we can change and adapt. It also shows us that we can celebrate in a variety of ways. Enjoying the holidays in a new way isn’t a rejection of the old; it’s often just being able to adjust to the times you are in.

I have been in transition for the better part of 2024. Some days are harder than others, and some days feel amazing. Then, I remind myself that life feels like that, no matter where you live. The same is true for holidays. Some are better than others.

I am not as far along in the decorating as Lowi, partly because my Christmas decorations are in another state. But I have a wreath on my front door and a trio of holiday deer waiting in a box to be illuminated on my front lawn. 

My holiday decor may not be what I am used to this year, and that’s OK. I am already planning my Thanksgiving food for next Thursday and the activities for Christmas. I am looking for ways it will be joyful instead of ways it could be less than.

Change always brings with it a little friction. Don’t let that get in the way of cultivating some fun, even if this season has part of it that you wouldn’t have chosen.

As Pema Chodron said, “Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so we might as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.”