With Christmas comes renewal and there’s nothing quite like it!

#TeenEssay

I can always tell when the holiday season starts and it’s not by waking up to frost-bitten windows, my sisters playing Christmas music while steaming up their bathroom mirrors, or even coming home after school to a house lit with hundreds of pine and cinnamon candles collected by my mother.

For me, the holiday season begins when I glance at the calendar and realizing that the school year has barely just begun, the workload is growing, and I need something… anything.

Every year the excitement of finishing the year dims a little as I crest the end of Thanksgiving week. The smile inducing spirit that is so craved during the final month of the year becomes harder to grasp.

But then there’s Christmas!

It’s a pick-me-up like no other. Especially during quarantine, when the house became alive again with a simple tree, some molasses cookies in the oven, and Home Alone playing on the television.

Sweeping mundane life under the rug for a few weeks, true holiday cheer replaces plain days with ones swaddled in joy. There is a collective renewal. A renewal of delight, love, and warmth. And the most breathtaking thing of it all is that we as humans chose this. There is nothing saying we need to celebrate, dress up, or give presents. There is no physical consequence to skipping the holidays. But every year, even in the pandemic, we brought the spirit of family and gratitude back. We brought the most magical time of the year back.

So, this year, I’m reminding myself it’s okay to play Christmas music a little early. Try to not shy from putting up endless amounts of decorations. Choose to look forward to those wonderful days and weeks. Choose to embrace the liveliness of the holidays because there is nothing quite like it.

Elisabeth Dellit is a Ninth Grader at Jesuit High School. She enjoys reading, writing creative stories, baking/cooking with her family and participating in her school’s drama program.