I miss the way my grandmother opened gifts at Christmas.

Even before the paper was all the way torn through, her eyes and mouth widened much the way ours do when we see a contented baby. Then came the sound effects…“Oh. Oh. Oh, my,” she would say, each “Oh” stretching with anticipation. No matter what you gave her, she reacted as though it was the gift she had waited a lifetime to receive.

“Oh, yes!” She would respond as though you were waiting for confirmation of her appreciation. If it was an object, she would explain all the ways she could use it or all the places it could go in her home. As for wearables, she would begin trying them on as instantly as they came out of the package while exclaiming all the places she could wear them.

It was a tradition for my grandmother to stay the night on Christmas Eve, so waking up to her reactions was something I most looked forward to each Christmas. I have missed her since she transitioned from this life, but this Christmas I felt particularly lachrymose when thinking about her absence. I was out shopping, checking off my list of people to buy for, and in a moment of feeling simultaneously lost in the engulfment of the season and of her absence, I just couldn’t help but start laughing. I found myself there in the middle of a store remembering how much fun it was to buy her gifts knowing no matter what I picked out for her, she would absolutely adore it.

It was within that moment a sense of peace fell over my body, and I felt completely connected—the opposite of feeling her (or any) absence. I felt her whole spirit—the way I felt it when she opened gifts. I looked around the store and wondered how many others were fortunate enough to have the same thrill of gift giving. All of the stress and urgency and confusion quickly shifted to clarity and joy and fun. This was pretty much how the Christmas season went for me. Perhaps the urgency that comes with the holiday season is felt in the urgency of an ending. The holiday season is the precursor to the beginning of the New Year, and no one wants to go out on a bad note—no pressure, right? Maybe this urgency is the very source of those moments of disconnection. But it’s all part of the process, the process of our growth.

The throw pillows, candles and decorations surrounding me throughout the season served as reminders of what I seemed to be lacking—peace and joy in particular, but when I wasn’t focused on their absence, I kept finding those very sentiments when I was least expecting to. I realized it was me—my focus that determined whether I felt connected to them or to their absence, and that awareness alone seemed to assuage the pressure of the season.

As much as our belief in humanity is revealed during the holiday season, there is also a heightened awareness in the absence of this so called “Christmas spirit.” What we would otherwise deem trivial feels bigger during the holiday season, because after all, it’s the holiday season. How can’t people be operating from their highest selves, and we put the same pressure on ourselves. When we shift our focus here, the magic quickly fades and the absence fills in. It is in this absence where we notice our disconnection.

There is truly something magical that happens in the month of December though—an awareness really, of the collective energy that connects us. The way it seems easier to smile at strangers—noticing the taken for granted acts of joy and kindness that slipped past us in previous months. We bask in the magic that reconnects us to our own. It’s funny—children believe in Santa all year long—but in December, we start to believe again—and this belief carries us right into the New Year, when we start to believe in ourselves again.

As we settle into the New Year—it’s much less likely we make new promises to ourselves, but rather we settle into the promise the New Year brings—a new chance to reset, to try again, or to keep trying. In some instances, it is the things we decide to stop dedicating our time, effort or energy into that seem to enliven our spirit as much as the novelty of resolution.

Synonyms for resolution include: Determination, perseverance, and purpose.

Let’s think about these. We treat the start of a new year as a new chance, the perfect time to start something that requires effort to keep at something that hasn’t come to fruition (determination), to hang in there with a renewed spirit, to get back up (perseverance), or to start again, all over, with intention (purpose).

But what is so magical about the beginning of a new year? It’s just that—it’s a beginning. Perhaps this is the reason the holiday season is an interwoven quilt of highs and lows—a bittersweet masterpiece that always comes together in the end, but as all works of art go—there was pain in the process.

However our year ended, let us use the clarity our hindsight offers as our foresight in the coming season. All too appropriately, hindsight is 20/20, and here we are the beginning of that 2020 focus. Let’s declare our collective resolution as a determination to see clearly the moments we felt disconnected and to use those moments as guides to fight for our focus, our re-connection.

Let’s settle into the new year in search of peace, our own—and allow everything else to come together through the magic of the season—the one we will spend the next eleven months developing so we can close another chapter anxiously awaiting the unwrapping of a new one.

If we shift our resolution from the specific goals we hope to pursue to the general purpose of our being—to grow, then no matter what we unwrap in the coming months, we won’t have to wait for our hindsight to see how it all perfectly fit into our lives.

No matter what we unwrap in the coming year, we will know how to wear it, what to do with it, or where to place it—and when we don’t know, let us turn to our imagination and trust the magic of the universe—allowing it to unfold to us. I want to unwrap all the gifts this year brings with the same anticipation and appreciation my grandmother did on Christmas morning.

When we notice our moments of disconnection, let us remember the joy and peace that will abundantly surround us throughout the holiday season and remember that they were there all along—ready for us to connect to the spirit that drives us, the one that connects us all. Let’s not wait until next December to have to see it to believe it. What would happen if we believed all year long?