Christmas, Without the Chaos: A Love Letter to Quiet Joy
Christmas, for the first time in a long time, didn’t feel like it came with a challenge.
For anyone who’s ever lived through the versions of the holidays that feel like a full-contact sport — shopping bags bruising your forearms, over fifty mental browser tabs scattered within your brain, pressure humming through the walls like the un-coded 1920s clothed live wires that spread through the living room and kitchen walls at my old place.
Oh… and you can’t figure out where the fuck that ringing in your ear is coming from—and if it will ever go away.
So, you know what I mean when I say: I noticed the difference in my bones.
There were no frantic to-do list.
No keeping track of how many gifts kid one versus kid four has.
No cookies for Santa.
No reindeer food.
No guilt if the magic wasn’t fucking magical enough.
No reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, slurring my words, half buzzed while the kids barely listened—though, according to my daughter, we probably did that only a few times. I remember more. But my memory is shot and she’s valid most times.
Either way, it’s cherished.
No Santa mall photos.
No baking twelve different cookies because Pinterest said tradition is measured in sugar and exhaustion. And all five of my children’s favorite cookie are, you guessed it… ridiculously different.
The no’s could keep going for another page or two, honestly.
But the truth is—having grown children who are thriving and living their best lives right now — healthy, happy, grateful, thoughtful, and genuinely beautiful souls… that is probably the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever made.
Forget writing TWO full women’s fiction manuscripts — where statics show only 3% of writers who sit down and start writing a book, actually finish it.
*Ehem — Please excuse me while I toot my own horn …
…TOOT 🚂 TOOT 🚂 MOTHER-FUCKER!
Forget the thirteen-page children’s book I cam up with in a day, like it was downloaded into memory.
Forget The Hollow Quill and the undeniable momentum it keeps building.
Forget college.
Forget driving to Florida with crippling anxiety.
Forget the anxiety altogether.
Forget anything I once thought was success—
… including the pot of the most perfect, mouth-watering arroz con gandules I’ve recently mastered.
Wait… scratch that.
I’m keeping THAT one.
Our space reverberates peace.
Tranquility.
Softness.
We wake without alarms. Without urgency. Without that low-grade panic that I might be behind on some invisible holiday checklist.
We wake with gratitude. The kinda that settles in your chest when life finally slows down enough for you to feel it.
There’s something deeply sacred about mornings like this — especially during a season that is so often loud, heavy with expectation, and emotionally expensive.
For many years, Christmas looked one way for me:
Loud.
Full.
Structured around traditions that revolved around children, non-stop gatherings, obligations I didn’t want to be a part of, and making sure everyone else felt the magic—even if it came at the expense of my own peace.
This year?
There are no children waking up at dawn to tear through wrapping paper.
No elaborate schedules.
No forced cheer.
And while that absence might sound heavy to some. Deafening.
It is a loss—just not the kind that destroys me.
I’m happy—so damn happy—to watch them grow into their own lives, building their own traditions now… while I keep learning how to build mine.
They make room for the version of you that exists now—not the person you used to be, not the person you think you’re supposed to be, but the one standing in UGG slippers in your kitchen celebrating the day after Christmas, realizing that peace can be a tradition too.
And let’s be honest: nostalgia is a beautifully deceptive bitch.
It tries to trick you into believing the past was better simply because it was familiar.
But familiarity doesn’t equal alignment.
There’s a calm that comes with knowing who you are—not in a loud, declarative way, but in the quiet confidence that doesn’t require validation.
That calm settles in when you stop questioning every step and start recognizing the signs that you’re being guided.
Not lost, you fickle bitch.
This year, the wins are beautifully different.
There’s soft light spiraling through the sliding glass windows of my new apartment.
Ellie-Mae is the oversized and over-friendly socialite BMD of our building—perched in her usual spot on the balcony, overseeing every single person who walks into the building like she’s the mayor, not-so-much security.
And there’s this deep sense of knowing that this — THIS — is exactly where I’m meant to be.
This Christmas was filled with a love I’ve never experience before.
A love with a man who doesn’t just show up… he SHOWS THE FUCK UP.
HG is the kind of love where happiness isn’t a performance. It’s a choice we keep making, on purpose.
For each other.
With each other.
So, we may not have a home that’s full of children running around, telling me what they hope Santa will bring them this year.
No pitter-patter of tiny feet racing down the hallway to wake me up on Christmas morning — eager, wild with hope, convince magic is real and wrapped in their favorite character paper.
But…
Santa still delivered.
Living—for the most part— with HG has been tender and grounding in ways I didn’t expect. This is the first time I’m navigating the world without children under my roof since I was sixteen years old.
And the apartment doesn’t echo with noise or chaos—just my own in the kitchen—or conditional love.
It exhales calm.
It smells like clean linen, sandalwood, and café buestlo.
And my favorite scent of them all, faint traces of HG’s YSL cologne on our bed linens.
Christmas morning I woke up with my man—and the peace I used to pray for.
HG has shown me not only what love feels like, but what love is supposed to look like.
Ellie woke us up early because she’s a furry cockblock with a scheduling problem.
We dragged ourselves out of bed, made coffee, and had a beautiful breakfast with his family—warm, easy, zero pressure. The kind of holiday moment that doesn’t ask me to perform, just to exist.
Then we came home and HG spoiled me with gifts like he was obsessed with making me happy (and he is).
Like he wants my whole nervous system to finally unclench (and he does).
We ordered Wawa subs, napped on the couch, and when we woke up we turned into two mischievous adults with zero self-control. Kissing that turns into laughing that turns into shut up and come here energy.
Hands everywhere. Clothes becoming optional.
Ellie judging us from across the room like she’s about to call my mother.
And it was perfect. The best Christmas day ever—soft, filthy, and ours.
It’s simple really.
We choose to make the best out of your day.
We choose to see bigger and brighter in all aspects of our lives in order to improve.
We simply choose to be happy.
Anyone can choose to dwell on things you have no control over, too—but that’s what holds most of us back from being truly and unquestionably happy.
The kind of life we are building is founded in small decisions:
Gratitude.
Giving grace.
Listening.
Communicating.
Honesty.
Respect.
It’s a choice to be together.
It’s a choice to want to do these things in order to protect our peace, our love, and our home.
A choice.
This version of the holiday doesn’t revolve around me making sure everyone else is okay at the expense of myself. It doesn’t revolve around proving anything. It doesn’t require me to bleed for the aesthetic of a perfect day.
And I’m grateful—deeply grateful—that I still get to watch my kids grow.
That I get to see them build lives that don’t require me to hold every piece together. That I get to witness their traditions continue, just… in new ways.
I’m also grateful I have parents I can still call.
Still talk to.
Still hear their voices when not so long ago I thought this Christmas might be something of a different tale, and I don’t take that for granted.
And if this season taught me anything, it’s that you don’t have to recreate the past to honor it.
You can miss it, cherish it, and still let yourself move forward.
You can hold the ache and the joy in the same hands.
This Christmas wasn’t loud. It was aligned.
And I’ve learned that’s its own kind of extraordinary magic.
Until Next Time… 💋
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It’s not a reset.
And it’s not here to rush your healing.
The Hollow Quill Reflection Journal is a 10-page guided digital journal created to help you slow down, reflect honestly, and close the year with intention — without pressure or perfection.
Designed for women who want to acknowledge the year they actually lived, this journal offers thoughtful prompts for gratitude, awareness, and gentle self-discovery.
This is not a planner.
It’s not a reset.
And it’s not here to rush your healing.
The Hollow Quill Reflection Journal is a 21-page guided digital journal created to help you slow down, reflect honestly, and close the year with intention — without pressure or perfection.
Designed for women who want to acknowledge the year they actually lived, this journal offers thoughtful prompts for gratitude, awareness, and gentle self-discovery.
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