Goodbye to 2025, Hello to 2026

When I started writing this it was seven days or one week until Christmas, and not much was going according to plan.

December 18th - December 31st

Autoimmune flare is laying me out. The weather is more like summer (85 for Christmas Eve and Day) so it doesn’t really feel like Christmas in the real world.

That is why I’m so thankful that I have created a special Christmas place that stays with me all year long. So, forget the no snow and warm temps, and instead I will show you where I found happiness this Christmas. In my magical world, it snows when it want it to. I look up at the night sky in wonder and amazing of the beautiful flakes. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s 85 degrees or 45 degrees; I see snow.

Another thing I'm thankful for is family, even though I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to. And even though because of the autoimmune issues I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time with the ones I did get to see, I still got to see them. I also leaned into childlike joy with a strawberry shortcake Christmas shirt and socks I got for Christmas and a classic Rudolph shirt I got for myself haha. I added Snoopy ornaments, watched classic Christmas films I hadn’t seen, and ate what parts of Christmas dinner I could.

I stayed in a cozy cabin with a blizzard outside. I spent the night in a castle with a howling wind, a gorgeous and very large — might I add — fireplace and a beautiful Christmas tree. I was reading in a Christmas-themed treehouse and I did all these things while being confined either to the couch or a pallet on the floor. The power of imagination.

Imagination is something I have fostered all my life. I still play with toys, color, use a lite brite all because although adulting is mandatory, losing your inner child and ability to play and create should never be. So many children now don’t know how to play, and if you don’t know how to play, you don’t know how to imagine or create; I find that heartbreaking.  

So many adults never learned how to play or imagine because of childhood trauma, and I get that. It takes a ton of practice to learn it, but it’s worth it. I could and still can have the best, most imaginative time ever with a lot of things or with none. My

imagination, a book and/or the outside are more than enough.

So once again going into 2026, I plan to play more, to enjoy the moments more. To be even more thankful for everything. I wish, hope, and pray that everyone has a year that is more hopeful, happy, and less hard. But if not, I hope you can, that we all can still see good, beauty, and gratitude no matter what comes.

Happy New Year

Be honest, be real, be you