I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas (even if you don’t celebrate)! I’ve noticed since I turned about 16-17, Christmas has gotten pretty boring at my house. I’m the youngest, so when I grew up Christmas turned into just a bunch of adults exchanging cards/cash. However, my boyfriend’s family still gets each other gifts regardless of age. So for the past 3 years, our Christmas consists of one adult-like gift exchange with his dad, two gift exchanges with his mom and his aunt that remind me of being a kid again, and then my boring old adult Christmas at my parent’s house. Usually it doesn’t leave me feeling really good at the end of the day, because everyone usually spends way too much money on things we won’t ever need. However this year was different, and I’m truly blessed with how thoughtful everyone was.

My favorite gift by far was definitely a hand-made blanket from my aunt, it’s something that I really appreciated and loved as well as being irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind, and sentimental. Runner up would be my gifts from my best friend Caroline and my office manager. Caroline surprised me with this GORGEOUS set of Van Gogh mugs, a small bar of “Van Gogh” soap from the Unemployed Philosophers Guild, and 2 pairs of art history socks. My manager got me pastel pencils (something I’ve been dying for), more art history socks, and the cutest little book of Van Gogh stickers.

Usually, as I’m sure every girl can attest to, Christmas is filled with generic gifts like scarves, perfumes, lotions, soaps, socks, etc. But this Christmas was truly thoughtful, and I couldn’t be more blessed to have such great people in my life.

On that note, I hope everyone else feels equally blessed this holiday season! I don’t know about everyone else, but it seems like this year has experienced an abundance of losses in my community. My heart truly goes out to anyone who is missing loved ones this holiday season, but how beautifully blessed you are to have been able to have them in your life for any time at all and to have such beautiful memories to hold on to. So going into the new year, try to take a second to remember those you’ve lost and remember to appreciate those you still have.

Thanks as always for the read, and wishing you all a happy, healthy new year!

The content images were both sourced from Amazon.com, I own none of the rights to these images.

I do own the rights to the featured image.