2021 has proven harder than 2020 in a few ways. You know that Tik Tok trend, “Can We Skip to the Good Part?”…yeah I’m feeling that.

Usually at Christmas time I am so excited. I love the holidays. But this year, I’ve been bursting into tears and generally felt a little unstable. There is a personal reason, but I won’t go into it, because it isn’t my information to share with the world.

I have decided I am going to hold myself accountable and be productive to bring myself out of the funk. Checklists? Yes, please. So first on the list is blogging at least once a week. I have checked it off on Monday of this week. Yay me! I also intend to work on some short stories again and post them here. It has been a long time since I’ve written a short story or a long story for that matter. And let’s face it, writing makes me feel better no matter what.

This morning, I decorated our breakable tree finally. (Side Note: if there are a lot of typos it’s because I got acrylic nails, and they’re halfway grown out and are making it really hard to type). Anyway, back to the breakable tree. Before Rob and I got married 1,000 years ago (18), I had an ornament shower. I received all of these beautiful Radko, Waterford, and various other breakable ornaments to put on our first tree together. Fast forward, three kids later and we were afraid to put them on our tree because little kids’ hands have a habit of destroying. So we got a free, although a little beleaguered, fake tree from Facebook Marketplace, and began decorating a separate “breakables” tree. The tree honestly looks Charlie Brownish, but at night when you see it from the windows it’s beautiful.

Decorating the tree this morning reminded me of all the years that have passed since I received those ornaments. All the good, bad, and ugly things that no matter what aren’t worth skipping. It reminded me of how we grow and change in marriage and in life. And it reminded me that even though right now seems so infinitely hard that things will eventually get better. It just takes time, patience, work, and love.

Merry Christmas!