For many of us, the holiday season carries a blend of beauty and ache. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or another cherished tradition, this time of year has a way of stirring up a whole constellation of emotions—joy and grief, fullness and loneliness, celebration and exhaustion. Holidays are rarely just one thing. They arrive as a tapestry of contradictions, woven from memories, expectations, and the stories we’ve been told about what this season ought to be.
We feel the pull toward perfection: the perfect meal, the perfect gathering, the perfect emotional experience. Cultural messages reinforce these expectations everywhere—on the radio, in commercials, on social media, in the movies we grew up watching. And beneath those messages often lies something deeper: the longing for the mystery, wonder, and comfort our childhood selves once knew. We come to the season carrying scripts—some tender, some heavy—and hope the holiday will somehow live up to them.
But life keeps happening. Grief slips in. Loneliness sharpens. Family tensions rise. Traditions change. Loved ones are missing. Roles shift, communities evolve, and the season doesn’t look the way it once did. When our internal scripts collide with the reality of our lives, disappointment emerges—not to shame us, but to show us where we are still tender, still human.
And tenderness is not a flaw. Tenderness is an invitation.
Disappointment reveals where compassion is needed—first for ourselves, and then for others who are also moving through this season with their own quiet aches. It invites us to loosen our grip on how things must be. To release the idea that we can choreograph every moment or guarantee that the holiday will feel a certain way. Instead, we’re offered a different possibility: to let the holiday meet us where we actually are.
What might this season feel like if we allowed it to be new? If we released the expectations long enough to notice what is real, what is present, what is unfolding in front of us?
For me, this year brings a different kind of Christmas—the first without my father, the first without my mother-in-law, and the first in a new congregation. The familiar landmarks have shifted. The ways I once imagined Christmas would feel have been quietly rewritten by love, loss, and change. And yet, there is something sacred in letting the celebrations be what they are—new, tender, honest.
So I invite you to consider:
- What expectations are you carrying into this holiday that might be asking to be released?
- Where are you already feeling disappointment—before the season even begins—and what tenderness does that reveal?
- What is the simplest, most honest way you can show up this year—for yourself and for those around you?
The gift of this season is not perfection. It is presence.
And the presence begins with you.
You are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. This holiday does not need to be anything other than what it is. Let the day be holy on its own. Let your experience be real. And let yourself—your tender, beloved self—be the gift that meets this moment.
May your holiday be gentle, spacious, and honest.
May it meet you right where you are.
And may you feel, in whatever ways you can, that you are held in love.
Infinitely Precious 