Every year since I turned forty, as I’ve zoomed toward forty-nine, I get anxious. Why, you ask? Because that’s when my mother passed away from gastric cancer—just days before Christmas. She never saw her forty-ninth Christmas on Spaceship Earth.
That truth has lived under my skin for decades, quietly influencing the rhythm of every December. It’s why I start the month with a blank slate—why Tabula Rasa Day means more to me than champagne and resolutions ever could. The clean slate resets my habits, sure, but it also resets my heart.
This is the year I finally name what I’ve been carrying: the fear of repeating her story. But fear, I’ve learned, loses its footing when you stand in the light. So I’m choosing to let hope have the microphone for once—to see what happens when I stop bracing for loss and start believing in what’s left.
Christmas To Christmas
And maybe that’s why December has always landed strangely with me. I’m never fully the Grinch, never quite Santa Claus — I exist somewhere in the middle, depending on the year, the weight I’m carrying, the people I’ve lost or found, and the energy I have left to give. Some years Christmas feels magical; other years it feels like a reminder of everything I’m still healing from. There’s a rhythm to it, a personal tide that rises and recedes, and I’ve learned to stop judging myself when my spirit doesn’t match the soundtrack playing in the stores.
This year, though? I can feel something shifting. Not all at once. But enough to notice. Enough to call it hope.
I’m hoping that decorating for the holidays with Jen — at our place, right after Thanksgiving, just like my mom always did — will let me catch lightning in a bottle. And I know, without question, that Jen is hoping to make this Christmas our best yet, because it’s our first shared one.
In 2024, I was still in Arizona, wishing and waiting and planning my return to her in Washington. In truth, it wasn’t really a wish — it was an inevitability. 2025 was always going to be our year.
But she still carries a quiet fear, or at least a hesitation, that even all of this — the home we’re building, the traditions we’re starting, the love we’re strengthening — might not be enough to help me finally cope with my mother’s passing, to give me the closure I’ve never quite found in the two decades since.
So here’s what I’m hoping: that through love and action, through small rituals and shared laughter, I can show Jen — and maybe even prove to myself — that I can recapture the magic of Christmas. Not by pretending the past didn’t happen, but by choosing not to let it dictate every December to come.
Hope as a Habit
Hope isn’t a mood for me — it’s a muscle. One I let atrophy for years because grief was easier to maintain. Grief doesn’t ask you to imagine anything new; it just asks you to remember. Hope, though? Hope asks you to participate. To show up. To try again.
So this December, I’m treating hope like a habit loop. A cue, a routine, a reward.
The cue: that familiar December heaviness.
The routine: choosing one small, intentional action that moves me toward joy instead of away from it.
The reward: realizing I didn’t crumble — I expanded.
Tabula Rasa in Action
Tabula Rasa Day isn’t just a line on my calendar; it’s a signal flare. A reminder that I can start fresh even with a past that still aches. This year, it meant reorganizing my home, resetting my nightly routine, doubling down on hydration and mindfulness, and clearing out both digital and emotional clutter.
But the biggest reset came in the form of permission — permission to let my story diverge from hers.
Permission to let December be something other than a countdown to grief.
Permission to build a future where the holiday season can hold more joy than fear.
Because hope isn’t a lightning strike. It’s a choice repeated until it becomes automatic. And this year, I’m practicing that choice every day.
Closing Thoughts
I don’t know what this Christmas will ultimately look like — I only know I’m walking into it differently. Less armored, more open. Less braced for impact, more curious about what could unfold. Maybe that’s the real shift: I’m no longer trying to survive December. I’m learning to meet it halfway. And if hope can take root here, in the shadow of a loss that once shaped everything, then maybe I’m finally ready to rewrite what this season means — one tradition, one moment, one shared Christmas at a time.
los, Fil-Am Renaissance Man 