Oh, the holidays. Any holiday is enough to make you want to go to bed and try again tomorrow, but we all have to face them. Some holidays feel like they come and go fairly quickly, but when your birthday isn’t too long before Thanksgiving, you get an extra few weeks to sit and overthink–all the way through the new year. Yay.

You can blame the hype on the billions spent on advertising, social media, or even your neighbors, but whoever or whatever is to blame, they hype isn’t going away. So what do we do? And how did we get here?

As a kid, I remember having fun with my cousins and spending a lot of holidays at my aunt’s house. I always wanted the hype. I loved the hype. I went through my entire youth hopeful for it all.

Then, I became the adult who so desperately wanted that picture we all have painted in our heads, thanks to all the expectations. I will say, I gave it everything I had. I planned, I shopped, I cooked, I–again–did all the things on paper.

Yet, each year, I think a little bit of the magic got dimmed. What do you do when you find yourself wishing the holidays away? The ones you used to love so dearly? I would go as far as to say I love the way the smell of the air changes as the cold air starts creeping in, and yet I have found myself stepping outside to take it in less and less each year.

Fall has always been my favorite, but almost nothing beats those cold, winter nights when you can see every star in the sky. That crisp, cold air makes you do all the things that build warmth. I guess a part of me always hoped I’d be surrounded by people who helped build that warmth.

Maybe my expectations got the best of me? Maybe my hope for rooms full of kind people, laughing and eating the food I so eagerly prepared just wasn’t in the cards for me? I know a lot of people get sad around the holidays, and for so many different reasons.

I wonder if there is a way to retrain our expectations? Can we let those ideas slip away and be replaced by just being grateful we are alive and safe and have food to eat? I’m starting to think so. But I also think maybe we have to allow ourselves to grieve the way we had hoped it would be before there’s room for that to happen.

I have survived quite a few holiday letdowns, but I’m praying this year will be the last time it feels this heavy? I want to get out of my head and just go with whatever is happening around me. I want to want to be around people again. I want to want to cook for people again, even if it’s for a smaller number than I’d always hoped for. I want to be excited for the holidays again–all of them. But I really want to love this time of year again. There truly is so much magic. I hope it finds its way back to me soon.

New Year’s Eve has always been a huge one for me. We get this chance to throw out the whole previous year to start a brand new one. I think it’s a time when you should be surrounded by the people you care about; the people you want to be in your life throughout the upcoming new year. It should be a time when I sit down and write, reflecting on the last twelve months, and what I want out of the next twelve. There should be laughter and fireworks, or at least sparklers.

I don’t know, maybe my expectations have ruined a lot of otherwise great things in my life.

To any of you who may also be finding your way back to your holiday magic, I hope you find it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to look back and realize I wasted all of my holidays simply wishing them away because they didn’t measure up to what was in my head.

Ready or not, here’s to the official start of the holiday season.

~Alisha