Happy Holidays — And Thank God This Year Is Over

As the year winds down and the language of the season kicks in — gratitude, joy, celebration, reflection — I want to say something that feels both honest and necessary:

I am grateful this year is ending.

Not because it didn’t matter. Not because it didn’t teach me anything. But because it asked a lot — and I gave it everything I had.

This was a year of reckoning. A year of loss and clarity. A year where systems showed their true colors, where leadership was tested, and where the cost of integrity became very real. It was a year that required endurance more than optimism, truth more than polish, and resilience more than applause.

And now, as live in that weird limbo between Hannukah and New Year's Day where we don't even know what hour it is and we and the puppies are stuffed with cheese, I feel something I haven’t felt in a while:

Relief.

Relief Is Not Failure — It’s Survival

There’s a quiet pressure this time of year to wrap everything up in a bow. To declare the year “good” or “worth it” or “meant to be.” But some years don’t need to be redeemed. Some years just need to end.

And that’s okay.

Being relieved that a hard year is over doesn’t mean we didn’t grow. It means we survived. It means we learned what we will — and will not — carry forward.

Gratitude, Without the Gloss

I am deeply grateful — not in a performative way, but in a grounded one.

Grateful for people who showed up when it mattered.

My husband, the distraction of new puppies, Ana, Terry, Jenn, Jennifer, Lina, Mary, Elaine, Suzanne, Tara

Grateful for moments of clarity that cut through confusion and despair.

Grateful for rest, even when it came late.

Grateful for the courage to tell the truth, even when it cost me everything.

Gratitude doesn’t erase the hard parts.

It coexists with them.

And this year taught me that gratitude doesn’t need to be loud to be real.

Let’s Make the Next Year Better — On Purpose

As we look toward the new year, I’m less interested in resolutions and more interested in intentions rooted in reality.

I want a year where:

• Equity is backed by investment, not just language

• Leadership is measured by integrity, not optics

• Communities are trusted, not surveilled

• Rest is respected, not earned through burnout

• Joy is not treated as suspicious

I want a year where we do less pretending and more building.

Less surviving and more shaping.

Less reacting and more choosing.

A Holiday Wish

So here’s my holiday wish — for myself, for our communities, and for anyone who made it through a hard year:

May we enter the next year lighter.

May we stop carrying what was never ours to hold.

May we protect our energy, our joy, and our truth.

May we build systems that actually care for people.

And may we remember that ending something hard is not defeat — it’s transition.

This year is ending.

And that, in itself, is something to celebrate.

Happy holidays.

Rest well.

Let’s make the next year better — together.