A Simple New Year

There’s absolutely no judgement here if you brought in the new year with a bang. Unless you’re my neighbors who scared my five-year-old awake four different times starting at approximately 9:27 pm.

I love watching other people ring in the new year with glitz and glam, champagne and change.

But that never feels quite right to me.

I’ve never been big on the whole “new year, new me” concept. Probably because I suck at setting goals, and also because as a teacher, I do the whole “new year, new me” thing in August, not January. It’s weird to reset halfway through my year.

So I don’t.

And it’s OK if you don’t either.

We did sit down and do our last family hug 2022 before putting our kiddos to bed. We also asked them what they wanted to do in 2023.

Squish, the 1-year-old, said, “ice kweem”–which is absolutely the correct answer.

HP, our Kindergartner, said, “Read 1000 books, go to China, and play my iPad”. We refined and finessed that to:

• Read a lot.
• Travel.
• Play more.

My husband and I also both re-committed to the idea of outsourcing. (I don’t do a word of the year, but if I did, I think that would be it!)

Truthfully, we want to make room for more of the same: time with family, time with friends. Opportunities to simplify, opportunities to slow down.

That doesn’t mean that we won’t accomplish big things or make important money moves. It just means that we’re saying no to adding anything else to our already full plates by putting pressure our our little family to start the year with a bang.

Instead, we’ll start the year at the same pace that a family with two little kids typically moves at–and we’ll allow ourselves to savor the slower, simpler, and somehow still chaotic pace.

So Tell Me…How do you feel about the new year? Wishing you lots of what you hope for in 2023!