Are we at the tail end of the holiday season, or is it the midpoint? It matters not where we are but how we are. How you are.
Yeah, I care about you, a reader, a fellow traveler.
I don’t love it when I get an email assuming I’m either reveling or unraveling, do you? You may be in full-on do-it-all, fa-la-la and cookie-baking mode—agenuinely delighting in every tradition, every gathering, every twinkling light. Or you might be barely keeping it together due to grief, illness, or being sick to death of the consumerism of it all.
You might be somewhere in between. It’s possible to be feeling all of those things in the same week, even the same day.
Wherever you are, here’s what I’ve been thinking about, courtesy of Mary Oliver: “Don’t hesitate. Give in to it… Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
We’re surrounded by songs insisting we be merry, cards proclaiming peace and cheer. But in the actual minutes and hours of these days—whether you’re savoring them or surviving them—do we actually look for joy? Do we let it land?
Because here’s the thing: joy isn’t decorative. It’s not optional. It’s fundamental.
Joy recalibrates us. It shifts our nervous system out of constant vigilance and reminds our body that life isn’t only about getting through—there’s also being alive. It builds resilience. It restores capacity. It reminds us what we’re living for. And that matters whether you’re in the thick of celebration or the thick of struggle.
Joy lives inside us right now, in this imperfect minute, waiting to be noticed and savored.
It might show up as steam rising from your morning coffee. The way light hits the window at 4 pm. A stranger’s unexpected kindness. The sound of someone you love laughing in the next room. Your own exhale when you finally sit down.
These aren’t crumbs. They’re the whole meal, if we let them be.
I’m not suggesting you perform joy for anyone’s comfort or ignore genuine pain. I’m saying that even in difficult seasons—especially in difficult seasons—there are moments of joy available to us that we often rush past in our hurry to get to some other, supposedly better moment.
And if you’re genuinely riding the wave of seasonal happiness right now? Don’t let anyone diminish that either. Soak it up. Let it fill you. That joy is doing real work in you.
So this isn’t a message insisting you feel anything in particular. It’s an invitation to pause, just for a second, and notice what’s actually here. Not what should be here. What is here.
Your breath. This moment. The fact that joy doesn’t require permission or perfection to exist.
That’s my rebellious holiday thought: Joy is never a crumb. Not if we refuse to treat it like one.
However you are today, I’m glad you’re here.
Merry merry,
GC
