Most of us are keeping the holiday lights burning through mid-January – we’ve only just turned the corner on gaining daylight hours, so we still need all the candles and Christmas lights to see us through these darkened days and nights. The concept of hygge comes to mind and we shall lean into that during the coming weeks. Red and ivory tapers lend light and warmth to any space and are the easiest way to transform a place into a cozier scene. Scandi design employs lots of candles during winter months, which may play a part in how well they navigate this dim season.

For my efforts in harnessing the hygge energy, I’m getting back into the baking scene, such as these lemon cardamom sweet rolls and this Danish bread, pumpkin seed disaster be damned. The Danish bread is hearty and rustic, ideal for carrying smoked salmon or deli meats with some creme fraiche and fresh dill. It’s also been a while since I’ve baked any bread loaf, and that’s an idea way to conjure a cozy environment.

So much of life is about seeing busy to distract us from thinking too much – at least I assume that’s why we do so many ridiculous activities. My baseline is more contemplative than that, but I do find solace and value in baking and cooking, along with sitting still beside a burning candle. Winter unfurls…

This Wednesday may (and I mean may) bring with it a yearly review for 2025, but as of the moment of this writing and its requisite weekly recap, I’m already over looking back at anything, particularly if it relates to anything from 2025. That said, I’ll give it my best shot, and for now there’s this look back at the previous week, because it’s Monday morning…

Apologies to all the Peggys.

The path to a possible holiday stroll, which I had all but ruled out earlier this year, was not clear at its outset.

It took a while to feel which way the universe was sending me, and it was a winding and wondrous journey.

Ultimately, the holiday stroll happened in the most unlikely of circumstances…

… and with the most unlikely of people, which also made it one of my favorite strolls of all.

Christmas often happens that way – in unexpected and magical twists and turns – and this year I decided to chose calm over chaos.

That meant I felt all sorts of Christmas cheer, more than I’ve allowed myself to feel in decades.

Exploding Christmas like Dynamite!

This is the second-best day to work.

Can’t take any more of this heartbreak.

Friday night candlelight.

The last weekend of the year.

Decaf drinkers unite!

An American cafe moment.

Shifting dynamics before the year ends.

Insult to injury.

Eye of a Sunday hurricane.

Our last Sunday of the calendar year is finally upon us. Amid this chaotic, purgatorial week, I pause on this evening and seek out a moment of clarity and calm – the typical goal of an average week, and ever-elusive more often than not.

My careful formality of wording and phrasing has been getting repetitive and annoying to my ears and eyes. Re-reading the beginning of this post is giving me an annoyed sense of dissatisfaction, bordering on frustration, and then I force myself not to care, not to edit, not to modify – because this is practice for the new year to come on this blog. Ready to get raw?

The formalness and fine-pointed methods I try to put forth in these posts are about to be bludgeoned and bulldozed into oblivion. If you hear me getting a little too precious, slap me silly. We are long past the point for being precious, unless you’re channeling Gollum. Or Buffalo Bill. And I’m not sure either of those two examples should be our guides…

Strap on and strap in… 2026 won’t be no cake walk.

Four people sit at the next table over from me on this evening of cafe culture. The two college-age daughters, if I may not so boldly assume them to be, are bent over their phones, entirely disengaged and unaware of everything around them. The father, again assumed, is also on his phone, tapping and scrolling awkwardly in comparison to his daughters. The mother, odd woman out, sits there with her head resting in her hand, looking half-bored and half-disgusted. Also completely resigned and unsurprised by the total lack of social interaction by her surrounding family.

Is this the new American dream?

Being alone together?

I’m not invested enough to feel sad for any of them. For all I know they are having the best time of their lives. Different strokes for different folks, right?

Speaking of ‘Different Strokes’, I really miss ‘The Facts of Life‘…

My mind is still a frightening place to be.

Forgive me if I’m a little quick to usher out the year that was 2025. Does anyone really think this was a good year? And what kind of fucked-up person are you if this was your idea of good? Check yourself and your beliefs. Emotionally exhausted, mentally spent, and physically older than I’ve ever been in my entire fucking life, I am hurtling toward the calendar’s finish line as fast as I can. There’s still enough time to stumble wildly and fall, and I reserve that right straight through the entire next year. Add it to my list of faltering and fumbling – no need to check it twice.

Don’t anyone dare ask what mischief might be made in less than a week lefty because OMG how quickly and easily will I show you. A challenge, a threat, and a promise all in one – my bread and butter, my creme brulee, my fancy feast, my what the hell am I even writing anymore? This crazy-ass post has been brought to you by the letter ‘A’ and all the fucking madness of the previous year.

Closing out the week with a quietly-candlelit post we just have one more holiday to go… and then what? Ah, there’s the terror and the rub. We race to this week then it’s done, and there’s suddenly nothing else to do. That used to be my conundrum, but for the last few years I’ve modified my perspective, shifting how I built things up in anticipation, what I wanted as a result, and how I kept the spirit going beyond one single week. The main difference I made was pushing out the idea of hygge deep into the winter. The winter season has only just begun, and it hardly ends with the completion of the holidays.

A spindly little tree lit only in white lights and holding no ornaments or decorations, stays erected in the attic until February. Andy will keep our real tree watered and lit until Little Christmas. And the cozy baking and sweet treats will see us all the way into March.

Hygge is the best way to get through the winter, and it’s here now…

Taking second place only to the day after Thanksgiving, this is one of my favorite days to be in the office. Quiet and conducive to catch-up and clean-up work, it’s the ideal work day for anyone overly-tied by the presence of human beings at this tail-end of the year (or in my case any damn given day of every year, take your pick).

An entire year of working in Human Resources, added upon the previous nineteen years of HR work, comes with a certain exhaustion, especially for those of us who find human interactions relatively low on our priority list. Some careers choose those with the most to learn, to challenge and expand our views of the word, and hopefully we can give a fresh and unorthodox viewpoint of established practices. I’m not sure how much of the above has been accomplished, but I keep at it, I keep trying, and on days like today I keep endeavoring to make things a little better for all of us keeping at it.