I like to do little mini-newsletters with just a few highlights from the year on the back of a postcard. I love listing out exciting events and accomplishments and looking back at our awesome year, every year.
But not this year. While I was working on the newsletter half of the postcard, I slammed my laptop shut and told Matt that we weren't going to do Christmas cards this year, because it was too depressing. Because on paper, his year sounded awesome (doctorate! employment!), and mine basically sounded like I have nothing good going on in my life (ate a lot of ice cream! has no job!).
And I realized that my life doesn't really "sum up" that well.
Because how do you describe the goals you've been working towards all year but haven't completed yet? How do you tell people about the little things that filled you with so much excitement, but don't fit into that newsletter mold, the Jobs-Kids-Travel trifecta that the people you only talk to a few times a year want to know?
Maybe I don't have big things going on in my life right now. Maybe I just have an extraordinary amount of small things going on, because I strive to find those small things and actually DO them. Especially when it seems like some of the bigger things are out of reach for the time being. Most of the time, I feel like my life is pretty great. Who is to say that those small things aren't as important as the big, newsletter-worthy things?
Who is to say that a small life isn't as good or interesting as one in which big milestones were reached?
We're still doing Christmas cards. But now they just list our new address, with love. I don't want to condense myself anymore.
Are you doing Christmas cards this year? How would you sum up YOUR year?
P.S. That photo? From our first snow this year, during the week of Thanksgiving, while my mom was here visiting. It snowed about five inches. Mom took our Christmas card photo, and then the three of us played outside for a little while. This face was when I realized that snow had gone down the back of my pants.