V is for Vacation

 V is for vacation! And in keeping with my December goal of essentialism, I've come up with my list of essential vacation pursuits.

Family time. A recent family tradition (one that has developed over the past few years) is a gathering at our house for cookies and snacks on Christmas afternoon. It's low-key -- no big meal, no real preparation outside the usual Christmas baking and shopping. It's a lovely follow-up to the usual Christmas morning festivities, and an easy way for my side of the family to spend time together. 

My daughter's ideas. This year, we are fortunate to have our young adult daughter home for the whole week between Christmas and New Year's. As is often the case, she digs into the remaining possessions in her childhood bedroom and, last night, I finished "rehabbing" a Barbie house from her childhood into a display space for other items. Also on the list are some craft pursuits and a day trip. When she's home, I tend to avoid making other plans so I can be available for whatever she cooks up. 

Writing (of course). I am sooo close to the end of the novel I'm writing, and my (hopeful) goal is to finish it by the end of this week. My more realistic goal is to finish it by the end of the first week in January. Either of those will make me very happy :-) 

Daria-Yakovleva via Pixabay

Creative pursuits. For more than a year, I've been working on prizing creativity instead of (or alongside of) productivity. Toward that end, I did some exploring on Pinterest and Skillshare and expanding my sketchnoting to include lettering and even basic drawing. This month and next, I hope to resurrect the crocheting skills I learned from my grandmother a long time ago. The new craze toward learn-to-crochet kits means my daughter is interested, too, so this is another "we can do this together!" activity. So far, I've found my crochet hook and some long-abandoned yarn. Now to put them to use.

Reading, resting, relaxing and rejuvenating. These are the key pieces of any vacation, at least in my
book, and I look forward to doing all of them guilt-free.

How about you? What does vacation look like for you? Travel? Sleeping in? Checking things off your to-do list? (Please tell me that last one is not usurping your entire vacation!) 

Whatever you're doing, enjoy. 'Tis the season to take care of ourselves.