Holiday Traditions

I admittedly am overwhelmed by the holiday season. I probably always have been to some degree; I remember being called Grinch at a young age. As I have grown up, I understand myself much better. I can feel the stress coming. With practice, I have become better at managing my anxiety during this time of year. I’m nowhere close to perfect or even where I’d like to be but progress has been made, I think.

Growing up, my parents set the traditions, some of which I still enjoy to this day. With less time and flexibility during the holidays, I have a lot more control over my fate. Though dating and recently marriage have added a level of complexity to holidays—blending traditions, new traditions, and holiday travel. (My family traveled once over Christmas during my junior year of high school and swore off holiday travel for all eternity imm.)

For the past several years, some traditions have emerged. I’m here to document for prosperity.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Husband and went to Lowelands Farms to pick out our Christmas tree. This was our third (and perhaps final year for some time) visiting this farm. The owners are very kind. The honey is divine. The location is optimal. The farm is large enough to select from a couple Charlie Brown trees amongst the true beauties, though the selection has dwindled considerably in size over the past several years.

We visited the National Zoo to see the Zoo Lights in mid-December. With the exception of one exceptionally busy December, this has been a tradition of mine since December 2010. This year has been unseasonably warm, which made walking the zoo very enjoyable! The fact that we didn’t have our hot chocolate in hand was only mildly disappointing. We had thousands of children to navigate, thanks to the genius idea of going on the nicest Saturday of December.

This year, for the first time, we attended my company’s holiday party. The party was incredible. We felt like A-listers. My previous company did not have a holiday party, and we’ve had competing priorities with Husband’s party both years he has been with his company. We won’t be upset if attending company parties becomes a tradition from here on out.

We dined at Little Serow for annual fancy Christmas dinner. (In previous years, we dined at Le Diplomate and Rasika. For the record, we think Le Diplomate is our favorite yet.) The Northern Thai food was delicious and the time together was nice as always. I was able to leave work at a reasonable hour so we could queue up for the first seating, allowing us time to soak up the continuation of pleasant weather as we visited the National Tree and the Capital Tree post-feast.

This year, in additional to the holiday party bonus, we saw Matilda the Musical at the Kennedy Center. This night was an absolute highlight for me. I anticipated this night since the last time I saw Matilda, no lie.

And what's Christmas without thousands of cookies? We hosted the our second annual sugar cookie decorating party with our new neighbors. There are few things better than celebrating the season with friendship, cocktails, frozen pizza, and holiday movies and music. There was of course the products of our artistic sides to further sate our tummies.  

We then jetted off to Boulder, Colorado to spend Christmas with Husband’s family. And afterwards, we’ll do Christmas at New Years with my family!