My all time favorite time of the year is officially coming to a close - the holiday season. 🎅🏻🎄 Of course you know I had to make a blog post about Christmas, even though the season is ending. I was trying to brainstorm what exactly to write about because when you run your business online the first thing your brain goes to when writing something or creating content is SEO, what’s marketable, etc. But I didn’t want to do that with this post. I love Christmas too much for that. ❤️ So I’m just going to write from the heart and if it flies, fabulous! If I’m the only one who ever reads it, that’s totally ok too. I think sometimes we should be coming from a selfish place of creating for ourselves too. That’s ok! This is getting out later than I had intended. Lots happened over the course of the holiday season, which I'm going to get into a bit in this blog post.
Originally wanted to write a post about what I’m thankful for this year back in November for Thanksgiving 🦃 but that didn’t happen. My November got a little hairy in the end. The week before Thanksgiving both Shadow and I got sick. Shadow had a stomach problem from stress and was having nonstop diarrhea 💩 while I was vomiting stomach acid. We were a combined absolute mess! After a visit to both the emergency vet and our regular vet, Shadow finally improved, as did I and then after that I had a mad dash of packing, wrapping up loose ends, and then driving 14 hours straight in one day from Denver to Chicago the day before Thanksgiving with two chihuahuas to make it home in time. With stress levels through the roof accompanied by just literally having no time - there was no Thanksgiving blog post. I figured in this particular post I’d share some of my favorite things about Christmas! I would also love to hear some of your favorite things about the holiday season. Whether it’s holiday traditions, favorite Christmas movies, what you did for this year, recipes, whatever it is. I’m down to know! So let’s open up the conversation here. What are some of your favorite things, feelings, experiences of the season?
My first favorite thing, especially this holiday season, is my brand new holiday themed oracle deck - A Magical Christmas. If you were here in September and October you might remember my autumn themed oracle deck, Fallin’ For You! And as excited as I was to release that deck for Halloween time, I think I'm about a million times more stoked to bring you guys A Magical Christmas because Christmas time is simply just my season - I absolutely thrive in the magic of the holiday season. 🥰 This deck is festive, whimsical, and brings in the Christmas cheer to any reading during the holidays. I’ve been so happy to use it in private readings and collective readings alike across all of my social platforms. The cool thing about this deck is you don’t have to be a professional highly experienced reader to understand it. Even completely rookie readers will easily interpret these holiday messages. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing readings for only yourself, friends, family, or clients of your own, pretty much everyone is bound to get a kick out of their festive reading. It’s the perfect gift for the intuitive in your life, even if that person is yourself. While I will always be using this deck in the future each holiday season, this year was one of the most special simply because 2023 was its maiden voyage into the world. If you’re interested in grabbing a copy of A Magical Christmas for yourself it's available for purchase all year long. You don't have to wait until next season to grab it. In fact, if you get it now you'll be ready in advance for 2024's holiday season and can do holiday readings anytime of the year (I'm looking at you Christmas in July! 😉). I’m without a doubt proud of this festive little creation this year! 🎁
My second favorite thing about the holiday season is decorations! Christmas trees, Christmas lights, anything bright, colorful, and sparkly this time of year. I admit I might go a tad overboard when it comes to the Christmas decorating….. Ok, maybe a lot overboard (I have one 7 foot Christmas tree in my living, one 4 foot Christmas tree in my bedroom, a Christmas willow tree and two table top trees on my patio, a Christmas palm tree in my kitchen, and three other table top Christmas trees scattered in my one bedroom apartment - one of which being an all pink tree. It’s basically a Christmas tree farm in my place 😂). But it brings me joy to my heart and it’s certainly not hurting anyone, so why not enjoy! And I do enjoy it early. I’ve had my Christmas decorations up since November 3rd. November 1st all the Halloween stuff comes down and then I take a couple of days to really get everything done Christmas wise. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had a Christmas tree in my bedroom. I can’t imagine not having one in there. So this has been my perspective pretty much all of my life. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with white lights per se, but it’s just not my thing, especially if the decor is all completely in white with zero color. Actually one light combination that I really enjoy that does involve white lights is taking white icicle lights and placing them over large C-9 sized color bulbs along a rooftop. That always looks really nice, like freshly fallen snow over Christmas lights. But for the most part I am a color Christmas light girl.
There was a TikTok I saw not that long ago where someone broke down what kind of Christmas girl you are based on your aesthetic Christmas style. There were like ten different variations, but I definitely found myself to fall into a combination of two categories. One was the Candy Cane Lane or Pink girl Christmas, which is basically using mostly pastels, pinks, and candy type of themes in your Christmas decor - which I do do a lot of. It’s a very feminine and girly kind of look, but not in a chic way, more so a bubbly and fun way. The second one was the Hallmark Christmas girl, which is more traditional taking things of sentimental value like handmade ornaments, ornaments passed down from family members, things of that nature. Think of the decor of a Hallmark Christmas movie set and that’s Hallmark Christmas girl, which is also me. Throughout my Candy Cane Lane you will also find much of sentimental value, Christmas ornaments I’ve had since childhood, etc. It may not fall in line with the Candy Cane/Pastel aesthetic, but it doesn’t have to because of the story behind it.
Now because Christmas decorations are one of my favorite things, aside from decorating my own place, I enjoy scoping out decorations around town, especially Christmas light displays! When I lived in LA I always made it down to Sleepy Hollow (I know that sounds more Halloween than Christmas) in Torrance to check out their neighborhood. All the neighbors collectively get together every year to put on a fantastic display! The nice thing about it being Southern California was being able to walk the neighborhood in nice weather, rather than drive it. The people that lived there would offer cookies, popcorn, even churros! The center of the neighborhood was the most festive with an actual lit up ferris wheel on display and someone dressed as The Grinch posing for pictures with everyone and interacting with the kids. This was always a fun activity for a night during the holidays. So if you’re ever in LA in December check it out! Another stunning spot to visit in LA during the holidays is The Grove at third at Fairfax. This outdoor shopping mall decorates to the nines with a 100 foot Christmas tree, Santa’s workshop on site to visit, Christmas stars sparkling in the sky above, and snow fall occurring regularly at 7PM and 8PM respectively. The places for photos are unending. It does get crowded and very busy, but for good reason, once you see the magic yourself the crowds won’t even matter.
This year I’m home in Chicago for the duration of the holiday season, Thanksgiving through New Years, so I won’t really get a true Colorado Christmas perspective, though I’m sure Colorado is probably absolutely quintessential for Christmas time. But there is truly no place like home for the holidays. In terms of beautiful Christmas light displays in the Chicago area, my mom and I continued our tradition of years past in going to the Botanic Garden and walking the grounds for their Lightscape display. They always do up the gardens gorgeously. This year was no different. We were actually originally going to go on the first of December, but that got rescheduled to later in the month because both my mom and I got Covid! 🤧 I’m still in shock about this as we’re both super careful. 😷 Three years into this weird pandemic thing and it finally got us. Thankfully we’re both vaccinated and boosted so it wasn’t bad. It was just like a really annoying cold bug. But because of it we did have to delay our Botanic Garden Lightscape plans. Thankfully we still got to see it, just later in the month. The other cool light show we checked out was the Willow Hill lights near my mom, which is a light display on a golf course. In previous years we’ve gone to the local mall’s light show (which seems to have disappeared this year), so this year we switched it up and tried this other one which did prove to be fun and better than the mall one of year's past. Finally, it was delightful as always to see Woodfield’s Christmas decorations while Christmas shopping and a couple of the local parks and how they do things up with the lights because every touch makes things a bit more merry and bright for the season.
My third favorite holiday related thing would have to be entertainment related. After all, at one point and time I did work in the entertainment industry, so naturally I have an appreciation for what movies and music bring us at Christmas time. Christmas movies are like comfort food for the soul. It's warm and familiar. We can watch them over and over again, year after year, and never tire of them. Can you imagine a holiday season with no Christmas movies? It seems unimaginable! My top three favorite Christmas movies would have to be 1. Elf 2. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and 3. Home Alone (the original one). If I'm having a sad day all I need is some "Smiling is my favorite," out of Buddy the Elf to make me laugh and that helps boost my spirit, even if I happen to watch Elf totally out of season. And when one of these holiday classics aren't on my TV usually gets "stuck" on the Hallmark channel's Christmas movies. Yes, yes, I know they're cheesy and predictable, but that's why I love them. In a world where absolutely nothing is stable in our day to day reality and exhausting Pluto transits, it's comforting knowing that something is at least safe and predictable in the world, even if that's the big city girl falling for the country boy in flannel in the small town at Christmas time. Then there is holiday music and Christmas carols, basically the soundtrack to the season! Whether you're looking for some classic carols while decorating the tree or some pop Christmas songs to look at lights to in your car, it sets the mood for holiday joy. And yes, I am one of those people with reindeer antlers and Rudolph's nose on my car, even with battery operated Christmas lights in my car, so naturally those Christmas jams are playing until New Years. Below is a playlist I have put together of some of my own personal favorite pop Christmas songs. Feel free to enjoy any time of the year. I hope to add more songs to it as I go. 🎵🎶
My final favorite thing about the holiday season is loved ones - friends and family. 👨👩👧👦 Love and the special connections we have with others is truly where the heart of the season is at. If you take away all the decorations, Christmas movies and songs, and yes - even if you took away my oracle deck - one thing would still stand - the people in our lives. Just like how it did in that the Grinch stole all the packages at Christmas time, the members of Whoville sang and celebrated anyway. ❤️ They sang because the joy of the season that existed in their hearts the entire time. I know this final area can be complicated for many of us. Some of us have no one and spend the holidays alone. Some of us don't get along with our families and have very complicated relationships with them with arguing and tension. Some of us are grieving for loved ones not present with us who should be sitting at the dinner table with us. It's not uncommon for people to not find the joy of the season from this perspective, and that's ok. I love my mom dearly, but in truth, we have a very complicated relationship. We have days where we have a wonderful time with each other and can make each other laugh until someone pees. We also have days where where there are tears and emotional damage. I treasure the holidays with my mom and of course the good memories we build and share because I know one day she won't be here to enjoy them with anymore, even if that's not for a very long time. But I struggle a lot with the bad days. I'm not going to dive into this in this post because this post is meant to be uplifting and about the holidays, but in the new year I do plan on sharing some posts regarding generational trauma, CPTSD, healing, etc. The positive thing about some of the struggles in this season in particular is it's really given me some ah-ha moments and motivation to further research some things in the new year to assist in my own healing journey. I will likely share about that here and bring you guys with me on my journey because I know that might help others experiencing and going through similar situations.
But this is why connection with others is my final favorite holiday thing, but certainly not least favorite. Community is key. 🔑 While having time for ourselves by ourselves is important, so is relationship with others. We are wounded in relationship and we find healing in relationship. ❤️🩹 Of course this needs to be in the right connections, not unhealthy connections. In the future, I may put together a Zoom meeting, Discord meet up, or something along those lines on holidays for those who are alone or simply need to be around healthy and supportive people, rather than toxic environments. We are all deserving to be in an encouraging safe space with others whom hopefully we can consider our tribe. 🫂 May that love we share with others around us, whether it's our online friends or people we know and interact with face to face, be the gift that keeps on giving not only during the holiday season but be a sparkle of hope we carry with us all year long. ✨
On a final note, I have lots of ideas springing up in my mind for future blog posts coming up in 2024, so stay tuned! 🎉 Obviously the family/generational trauma, also Akashic Records, is one part of it as previously mentioned, but that's certainly not all. I honestly wanted to have this holiday related blog post up and out prior to Christmas, but things were so busy after recovering from Covid with holiday activities and then cranking out holiday related readings and content, the time simply escaped me! Now that we're going into the New Year things should hopefully get a little bit more normalized. The main thing I'm keeping watch on now before heading back to Colorado in the New Year is Tinkerbell. Remember how I mentioned Shadow was sick prior to Thanksgiving and the holidays at the beginning of this post? Well, now Tinkerbell is struggling. She had a seizure the other night. In fact, I've been awake all night working on this blog post as well as other things because I've been watching over her like the mama bear that I am. Please just keep my little girl in your prayers. 🙏 We will be making arrangements to see a neurologist and get an MRI done for her in the New Year once we're back in Colorado. I was going to originally write a gratitude post to close out 2023 as a New Years post (to make up for that lack of Thanksgiving post and I thought it would be a nice New Years piece), but the past couple of days have been so emotionally draining, I don't have that in me to write and publish my New Years, not that I'm not thankfully obviously. I already was half way done writing this holiday post from earlier in December, so I thought it made more sense to change a few things and simply finish this one. Perhaps when I'm less emotionally charged, I can ground myself enough for a gratitude post at a later date. But we will be kicking off 2024 with a beginning post all about a learning adventure of discovery towards healing, so stay tuned! 🍾🥂
Comments