All the Best to You for a Merry Christmas 2025!

How have you decided to spend this holiday season?¹ Are you recreating? Spending time with loved ones? Taking up other hobbies or interests you don’t usually get to pursue? Some combination of all of these?

If so, that sounds delightful. It’s wonderful to be able to come through a year—however filled with challenges and unexpected turns—and still truly enjoy the holiday season.

Due to the frequency of major holidays, particularly Christmas, this season invites us out of frenetic normalcy like no other. And the more you can prepare for and gratefully accept these invitations the better.

Too Many Things, Too Few Days?

But maybe the end of the year has crept up on you largely unnoticed. Maybe you find yourself with more to do than the days you have left in the year Maybe the holiday season’s special character comes not as a pleasant invitation but feels like it looms with an additional set of demands.

(If you’re facing this challenge or others, please take a couple minutes to let me know. I’ll be using that information to make next year’s resources as helpful as I can.)

Wherever you find yourself, though, try not to let the season pass without pausing to look up. There’s more to life than your current slate of academic obligations, other work demands, or your next upcoming project.

You definitely won’t regret the time that you use to say “yes” to what’s most important.

Wishes for the Season

However you’re spenting the remaining days leading up to Christmas, I particularly hope you’ll take the opportunity the holiday affords to join with “the few among the Niatirbians” in grateful reflection on the elements of truly lasting value in the season.

It can be a challenge to look up from the daily grind, or “the rush,” long enough to catch a solid glimpse of these elements. But it’s an effort well worth undertaking.²