First of all, thank you to everyone who checks out my weekly posts. Seriously. I know they’re sometimes messy and sometimes feel like déjà vu, but something in them keeps resonating with you all and you keep coming back for more. And for that, I am grateful. Saturdays at 1 a.m. apparently being my peak traffic time absolutely cracks me up—little light toilet reading, perhaps? If you haven’t subscribed yet, I hope you do. It’s only one email a week. I know the struggle of an inbox full of “15% off!” emails when you only signed up for a single coupon back in 2021, and I apologize for not offering you any discounts. I don’t have products… unless you want photos or beard balms. Then, hi. I’ve got you.
By the time this posts, Nick and I will be on Day 6 without bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes. A little two-month reset. Not keto—don’t worry, we’re not becoming That Couple. We’re just trying to eliminate the things that taste amazing but make us feel like absolute dog shit after. Thanksgiving lovingly reminded us of that. By day six, we shouldn’t feel as physically or mentally heavy. Our carb gremlin should downgrade from “hostage-taker” to “friendly negotiator” whispering, “Come on… just one bite of a cookie.” Energy should level out, the hangry moods should simmer down, and the bloating should decrease—well, except for the period I’m getting mid-reset, which will be a fun experiment. But overall, day six is usually when my body stops fighting me like a feral raccoon and remembers we’re on the same team.
Wish us luck.
Somewhere between swearing off bread and decking the halls, I hit a point this week that really made something click. Because tell me why the shift from Thanksgiving to Christmas feels like a Tylenol Cold & Flu mixed with caffeine and a panic attack. Two major holidays basically touching each other… WTF!? It’s the same every year, but the older I get, the more it feels like emotional whiplash. Every year we buy gifts for all six girls. A lot of gifts. But most years, we don’t buy for each other. This year has been packed with concerts, trips, outings, responsibilities—all the things—and somewhere in that chaos I realized: birthdays and Christmas just aren’t “special” anymore. Growing up, those were the magical days. The big deals. The moments you waited for.
Now? It’s more like: see it, they’ll love it, buy it, give it now. And then Christmas rolls around and we’re all sitting here like, “Okay… but what can possibly top the special thing we already gave in April?” It’s exhausting, and honestly? It steals the magic right out from under you.
And as I was thinking about all of this, I suddenly remembered something I wrote in a previous post — Treat Yo Self: The Existential Edition. That entire piece was me realizing how consideration gets pushed to the back burner when life gets loud, and how easy it is to forget to consider myself, my needs, or even why I do the things I do. What I didn’t realize then was that I was also talking about THIS — the quiet shift happening underneath all the holiday noise. Back then, I was learning how to be considerate of myself. And now, I’m learning how to bring that same kind of intentional consideration into our whole family.
So this year? I’m done with that cycle. This year we’re switching to Christmas Baskets. I’m buying the baskets, and each girl gets ONE small, thoughtful gift for every person in the house. $10–$20 max. No coupons, no junk, nothing meaningless. It can be thrifted, baked, handmade, regifted, bought—whatever—as long as it’s personal to the receiver. They can follow the “want, need, wear, read” guideline if they want, but the real goal here is to make them think, to get to know each other, to show effort. Because too often I hear about the time and energy they put into friends or other parents or significant others, and Nick and I—or even their siblings—end up as the afterthought. This is about intention. About financial sanity. About teaching them that gifts are not just items—they’re effort, thought, and time.
Some of these thoughts actually came out of the journal my best friend gifted me — the one that says, “Turns Out These Are My Monkeys and This is My Circus.” Which honestly feels a little too on the nose at this point. I’ve been scribbling every realization, meltdown, breakthrough, and half-baked idea into that thing. If you need your own space to dump chaos-brain ramblings or brilliant midnight epiphanies, I linked a similar one here*. No pressure — just sharing what’s genuinely been helping me process all of this in real time.
And that brings me to what hit me like a Mack truck on Friday while I was decorating: TIME is the real gift no one acknowledges anymore. It’s wild how invisible it becomes. Every strand of lights I put up, every window I cleaned, every crumb I scraped off the floor, every meal I made, every errand I ran—it was all my TIME. And that’s something people forget is being given freely, out of love, every damn day. Yes, we chose to have children, but the level of TIME we choose to pour into them—into making their lives comfortable, safe, festive, fun—is not some bottomless resource that should be taken for granted.
So there I was, in full ADHD holiday tornado mode: put up lights → notice dirty windows → clean windows → clean sills → back to lights → garland → dust → move toddler table → crumbs → WHY IS THERE ALWAYS SOMETHING. The emotional volleyball in my chest was ready to burst. I used to deep-clean this whole house myself: downstairs one day, upstairs the next, keep it maintained. But then the mom guilt set in. I didn’t want Evelyn’s toddler years to be another blur where I “got through” my days cleaning while she grew up. I already blinked and my three oldest turned into practically-grown people while I was folding laundry and trying not to lose my mind.
So we made family deep-clean weekends. Except… they haven’t been happening. Realizing that hurt. I was frustrated, exhausted, emotional—just over it. And the truth is, Nick and I give out ungodly amounts of TIME. Not just around the holidays—every damn day. Going out, shopping, buying food, cooking meals, cleaning up messes, handling schedules, showing up to events, supporting everyone emotionally, managing the house, working—we are constantly giving TIME. And showing up for someone, in any capacity, is TIME. Time we don’t get back. Time we choose to give because we love them. And it hit me how little people actually notice or appreciate that.
People are lightning-fast to point out when your tone is tired or you’re less chipper than usual… but rarely does anyone pause and say, “Wow, this looks amazing. Thank you for spending your TIME to make this feel like home.” Appreciation costs nothing. But damn, it goes far.
With all of that building up, I did the only thing I knew would release the pressure: AirPods in, emotionally destructive music queued up, cry it out. It worked. I breathed again. I built Evelyn a little magical tent with sheets and Christmas lights, we ate lunch, she napped, I showered, Nick came home, and suddenly I was human again instead of a cranky holiday gremlin.
I pitched my Christmas Basket idea. He loved it.
And honestly? With the hospital he works for being financially held hostage by politics right now, we don’t need the annual Christmas-induced financial crisis on top of everything else. Our family doesn’t need anything. Wants? Sure. But if we want to keep prioritizing experiences over stuff, then in the wise words of Mick Jagger: “You can’t always get what you want.”
Wish me luck in this new Christmas Basket Era. And please—for the love of everything—let yourself fucking breathe this holiday season. TIME is a gift. Don’t forget to give some of it to yourself!!
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