I am looking forward to a little more light each day.

Today’s post will be the appropriate length for a blog in today’s busy world — about 500 words. It is also this year’s replacement for a Christmas card featuring the smiling faces of my children, which I have sent most every year through 2021.

The front side of what may be the last end-of-the year holiday card that I created in 2021. It is a grid of six squares that display from top left to bottom right: 1) Sharon and Ken sitting in the The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch®, 2) Jack running into the Pacific Ocean, 3) three kids on a swing overlooking La Jolla, CA, 4) Jocelyn with a horse, 5) our yellow lab, Loki, in the middle of a grassy field, 6) Sam playing the trombone in his full band uniform, 7) the Northwestern incoming class of 2025 lined up on the field in the shape of an N during Wildcat Welcome week, 8) our family arranged around Jack at his high school graduation ceremony, and 9) a scripted graphic that says “Happy Holidays from the Vogel Family.”

In 2024, I will reimagine this tradition with another card-sending activity because I do so love the sending and receiving of cards.

A collection of seven photo cards featuring the Vogel family — especially the kids — with big smiles.

I do not love how I have fallen into a certain kind of way of doing holiday cards. It can feel performative — choosing the picture(s) that shows my kids looking close to perfect and selecting a tasteful design from a reputable stationary company. Then… how many to order? Do I have the correct addresses? Will they arrive on time? The answers to those questions are “too many” and “not enough,” “not entirely,” and “yes and no.”

This picture illustrates Sharon’s process of card-sending with names jotted on the back of a very messy envelop — some crossed off in different colored ink — several envelopes with stamps and names but no addresses, and several envelopes marked with yellow “return to sender” stickers.

I’m done with that for now.

For now, I am in the midst of a four-week mini-ease-retreat, thanks to a very dear meditation group, with whom I practice love and kindness across time and space.

During this mini-ease-retreat I am in acceptance. Yes, I have no interest in creating a holiday card to reflect out my current happiness… and yet I am grateful that your tidings of comfort and joy are arriving in our mailbox. Also, yes, I have no interest in designing an annual report to reflect upon achievements of my consulting business in 2023…and I am in gratitude for the inspiration I feel when I see your creative share-outs of the past year’s ups and downs and overs and arounds.

I accept those circumstances. And: scroll up, I also have this current photograph of me and the humans my life circles around.

Yes, it’s true that I probably would not deem it “good enough” to print in color on the front of a holiday card and mass-mail to friends and family across all the zip codes. I accept that… *and* I am in gratitude for the Solstice hike my family took together through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park that we share as public lands with all of you.

Yes, the headlamp made a weird red mark on my forehead, and I might have chosen to wear something different if I knew ahead of time that I was going to make a picture of the moment publicly visible to all of you. I accept that, and I am grateful to smile when I’m happy.

Yes, I feel the press of polarization, loss, violence, and grief. I accept those feelings about the way this past year has been. And: starting today, because of the way the Universe works, for all the days I can see on the horizon, each tomorrow will bring a little more light than yesterday.

Thank you for the light and the sense of lightness you bring to my life — I accept it gratefully. And: I wish for you that a mini-ease-retreat finds its way into your end-of-the-year celebrations.