Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate this beautiful holiday. Happy Holidays, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and happy everything to the rest of you. As a kid, I celebrated both Christmas and Chanukah, though admittedly without much religion thrown into either one. I loved Christmas. Not so much for the gifts, but for the times when my uncles would join my family for the day to hang out, eat, play games, and just be together.

Let me take this time to wish you all a truly safe and love-filled holiday season. 2020 has been one wild and often painful year. Some of you may have lost loved ones to COVID. You may know someone who has been sick or still is. Some of you have probably struggled with all of this social distancing and time away from the family and friends that you love. Many of you have lost jobs and seen your financial future take a dramatic and scary plunge. Maybe you’ve had kids home since March and you’re starting to feel like you are losing your mind.

I’m not sure if any of us can even picture what next year will look like, but I know the vast majority of us hope it will look very different than this year. My hope for each of you is that you can find some peace and joy at the end of this trying year and look forward to 2021 with an open heart and lots of hope. It’s not so easy to do after a year like this one and yet, hope is such a powerful human emotion that keeps us going even when it feels like we shouldn’t bother.

Thank you for reading my weekly blog, for your kind words of love and support, and for being the beautiful human beings that you are. Enjoy the holiday as best you can. Don’t skimp on the good food or the eggnog, watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the 100th time and hold on to hope. We are a resilient species and together we can thrive through all of this.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC