December 2023 Family Update

We spent the first weekend of December in Alpharetta, GA for lacrosse. It was a fun tournament and a cute little city, especially Market Street. It was decorated for Christmas and felt like we were right in the middle of a Hallmark movie. I loved it. After 6 straight weeks of traveling, I was so excited to be home for a while, but it was fun to look back on all of the trips we took together this year.

✈️ St Louis, MO
? Chattanooga, TN
✈️ Orlando, FL
✈️ Philadelphia, PA
✈️ Tampa, FL
? Gatlinburg, TN
? Panama City Beach, FL
✈️ Jacksonville, FL
? Greenville, SC
? Alpharetta, GA

It was even more fun to see that I saved $4927 in airfare and hotel costs. Travel Hacking is the only way I can afford Skylar’s travel teams which took us all over the Southeast this year. We already have 4 trips on the books for Q1 2024.

December is always so full and this year was no exception. I also have a birthday thrown into the mix. I decided to take the day off work and intentionally celebrate myself turning 44. I filled it with things that I enjoy and it was such an incredibly fun day! As a belated gift to myself, I got us tickets to Christmas Trivia at the Capitol Theatre followed by a screening of Christmas Vacation which was so much fun! Our team “Too Cool for Yule” finished in the top 5 out of 30+ teams.

I was invited to several holiday parties and Skylar also attended Winter Formal with Avery. At home, I enjoyed unboxing all of my Advent calendars. Wine, cheese, truffle, and puzzles were my faves! I also managed to make a couple of homemade macrame gifts for family members and get all of my purchased gifts shipped home with time to spare. After all of the traveling, the Christmas season felt surprisingly calm.

We kept our Christmas Eve tradition of cooking a traditional Jewish meal and inviting those in our lives who don’t have family in Nashville, either by distance or choice. It makes me so happy to feed everyone, give them their holiday PJ pants, and hang out watching Harry Potter movies. I tried to convince Skylar to open her presents at midnight but my little traditionalist wanted to wait for Christmas morning. We still had a very slow and easy start to the day and I was thankful for that too. I don’t think she opened her first gift until around 10 am.

A couple years ago I started taking off the week between Christmas and New Year’s to give myself a break and a chance to catchup. It’s been the best little rest and reset. I have done minuscule amounts of work this past week but I have slept in, played a lot of pickleball, and went on a couple hikes. I have zero regrets! As I learn more and more about my human design, I’m not even sure that I’m going to set any goals for 2024. It’s a hard habit to break but I think I’m just gonna sit back and see what comes my way.