On New Year’s Eve, I woke up with the unprecedented yet strong, strong desire to rid my house of Christmastime, to pack away our trees and snowmen and old, shedding strands of garland, dust our mantle. I deep cleaned our stove top, vacuumed the whole house, washed our quilts and pillows and Annie’s blankets, dusted the corners and windowsills in our bedroom, changed the sheets, cracked the windows and aired the house out before the cold front. And when we woke up on January first, I felt ready for spring, for rainstorms and daffodils and mossy sidewalks, sumo oranges, gingham, heated blankets, Barry Manilow and the Carpenters, Valentine’s Day. Oddly, I felt no remorse for closing the holiday season on time this year, rather than packing up mid-January as I’ve done in the past. I just felt ready for a new year.
I told Price Wednesday morning, as I scraped together my favorite brown butter pancakes, sadly made from sour cream and milk this time, as my buttermilk heartbreakingly curdled, that contrary to many, I think I’ve decided January may be one of my favorite months of the year. That was met with a scoff, to which I replied this hasn’t always been the case, as January once symbolized the return to school, the leaving of home. But now…now, January feels so, so much sweeter, cleaner, more valuable.
We moved into this house two Januarys ago, after a four month house renovation that felt like it took a decade. We spent that month collecting new bedding and pantry organizers, cleaning supplies, boutique laundry detergent, new furniture. The morning of the move felt like all my most magical Christmas mornings rolled into one. We dropped Annie off at my mom’s house early, early, and then met the entirely too expensive movers at our storage unit, where my beloved furniture sat waiting, covered in spiderwebs. Then we took the movers to the rented studio cabin we had lived in for nearly a year, down the steepest hill in town and nestled on a pond of mosquitoes and I-30. After our cars and their trucks were filled to the brim, we occupied our neighborhood street until after lunchtime, directing everybody to walk on paths of old quilts and cardboard in an effort to protect our perfectly glazed, redone hardwoods. After everyone left, and our belongings were piled onto our front porch, protected from the cold rain of an oncoming springtime, Price and I sat on the floor of our front living room, grinning. In disbelief of this home we’d created, finally ours. My mind was racing with the thought of decorating, organizing, gathering, putting together our life again. I listened to Norah Jones and slowly, slowly moved in. The bedroom first, then the kitchen, the laundry room, the linen closet. And every January since, I have felt that joy of home, the desire to turn on Norah’s Chasing Pirates and run to Target for their spring section, steal an Aromatique “Smell of Spring” candle from my dad’s flower shop, reorganize something.
My baby girl was born in March of this past year, and it wasn’t until January did I really, truly feel as if I would be a mother soon. We finished wallpapering her nursery by hand at the first of the year. My grandma threw her a shower in her home, my favorite home for all of my life. We washed her clothes that January, organizing her drawers and by the end of the month, I had her hospital bag packed. I started drinking raspberry leaf tea and curb walking occasionally. And I spent every night underneath the heated blanket on our bed by eight o’clock, curled onto my side so I would feel her kicking, fall asleep with my hands cradling my stomach.
So how could I not love January now? After two years of homemaking and lifegiving winters.
And while I’ve never been big into resolutions, never having completed a single one, I love the chance to think about our routines, our habits, what we’d like to do differently, and most importantly, what we’d like to do the same. This year, I feel so content in so many little things…Kit’s morningtime on the library floor, afternoon naptimes in her nursery, the light a pink glow as the sun crosses to the other side of the house, cookbooks for dinnertime, blow drying my hair, my $4 cozy comfort candle from Walmart burning before bed, Blue Bell cookie two step on the weekends (trying not to do weeknights bahaha). I am so thankful to the Lord for the tiniest things in my life these days.
And so for 2025, I dream of tiny things, too.
Price got me Paul David Tripp’s new devotional for Christmas, his first being my favorite from college. I read it alongside scripture last night before bed, and my prayer is consistency in that routine, consistency in my written prayers, even more so than last year. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned consistency is a prayer never prayed too much.
This is the year I’ve decided I would become a capable baker. To find out why my cookies don’t exactly fall how they should, or why my pie crust doesn’t roll out smoothly. I want to make Kit’s birthday cake myself, so I don’t have much time before I need to get to work.
As for the interior designer in me, the urge to reorganize and move around isn’t necessarily a bad one, given we live in a tiny house with Jack and Jill bedrooms. Yesterday, I dreamed up an idea for the front living room that, despite perhaps taking away my large dining table for a while, would result in another soft, window-lit area for Kit to play in. Another nook for me to write, another corner to stuff a pretty chair in, baskets for toys, a reason to buy a new lamp, a smaller table to seat our little family at suppertime.
And finally…my writing. This God-given desire to create, to tell, to remember. I was talking to a friend today about how writing literary fiction is the most intimate of storytelling, sharing this world within your mind, sharing how you see things, how you interpret things, how you’ve remembered and incapsulated conversations, relationships, memories, and then turned it all into a world of stories to tell another. I once read that when you love a writer, you’ll never die. And I find that beautifully true. I have 60,000 words of one story written, but I feel another on the seams of my mind, one shaped by how my life has changed this year. Motherhood, adulthood, marriage, friendship. This year, I want to have an outline, a few chapters at the very least.
I shared on my stories a few days ago I’m declaring the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun” is my song of the year. I’ve loved them for what feels like my entire life, listening to their CDs in my grandma’s tiny kitchen with blue countertops. While I made dinner on New Year’s Eve, I listened to my Rhode Island playlist, a collection of old yacht rock-esque songs that feel like our honeymoon, feel old, feel like sailboats and Adirondacks by the water. But mostly, they feel like growing up with my mom’s side of the family. That song came on, and somehow, dramatically, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time.
We’ve only just begun to live
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we’re on our way
Before the risin’ sun, we fly
So many roads to choose
We’ll start out walkin’ and learn to run
Sharing horizons that are new to us
Watchin the signs along the way
Talkin’ it over, just the two of us
Workin’ together day to day
Together
And when the evening comes, we smile
So much of life ahead
We’ll find a place where there’s room to grow
And yes, we’ve just begun
Very, VERY late to this post, but would you please share this brown butter pancakes recipe?! That sounds like the perfect Saturday morning treat.