christmas unsurrendered

You can feel it in the air already.

- 

As white frost stretches across windowpanes and trees shake off the last of their leaves. As twinkling lights rise to fill their place and scents of pine follow you wherever you go. As sounds ring out like bells in front of shops, like Sinatra and Crosby coming through the radio, like plans being made to see one another.

It's the feeling of Christmas, and if you're anything like me, it's one you anticipate all year long. A bright spot that shines in the distance. There as a promise of the year's finality, and with it, a chance to slow down and surround yourself with only what fills you up—the people, the meals, the traditions no one dares let go.

This is the Christmas I hope for. The one I dream about during springs that feel like sprints and dead-hot summers that seem to have no end.

It's the one I imagine waiting for me on the other side of hectic autumns and schedules that got the best of me. And it's the Christmas I've learned I'll have to fight for these next few months as the tendency to keep hustling blurs my reach for Christmas as it should be.