Happy Holidays, my dear readers!

Merry Christmas + Christmas Eve this weekend to those of you who celebrate, Happy start of Chanukah tomorrow to my Jewish friends, and simply wishing everyone a festive and loving time with whatever holidays they celebrate and rejoice in!

Firstly, THANK YOU to you all for your continued love and support this year. From always following along and reading, commenting, messaging, sharing-- every single bit of it means the world to me, and enables me to be able to keep sharing and inspiring all of this in this space with you. Not a single bit of it ever goes unnoticed or unappreciated!

It feels surreal that Christmas is this weekend already and that the holiday season is drawing to a close. It's been a whirlwind December over here, and I am very much looking forward to spending some time with my Mom, pregnant sister, and her husband this weekend in a low-key Christmas celebration. Lots of good food, cozy movies, silly video-gaming, catching up, and just quality time with my loved ones. It will be the first Christmas without my Dad, which gives things a sense of hollowness in my heart, but I am so grateful and lucky that I have enough love surrounding me to be able to fill that space during these new days.

I'll be taking a much-needed break here for a week, to rejuvenate and fill my proverbial cup so that I can come back more inspired and ready-to-go for the New Year! I will be back next Friday for a 2016 recap post, sharing some of my favorite photos I haven't published on the blog yet, and some deeper reflections on this crazy year. So, stay tuned!

BUT. Before I go, I have an abbreviated version of Favorite Friday Finds to give you guys some awesome reads while you're sipping on hot cocoa in jammies, along with holiday recommendations! 
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• If anyone is really pushing it with last-minute gifts, here's an index of my gift guides!
• I will most definitely be binge-watching many movies from Camille's list from of classic Christmas movie, while I make some of my favorite holiday recipes for my family.
• Speaking of recipes, I'm dying to make Sara's Matcha + Coco Rose Raw Bark and Marisa's Nut Butter Brownie Truffle Bites. Can you tell I'm craving chocolate?? 😇
• Now that I just talked about chocolate and my plans of not avoiding any of it, here are my 3 stress-free tricks to staying healthy while at home for the holidays.
• I loved Ashley's candid post about creative ruts and self-doubt as an entrepreneur. Working for oneself is a whole other kind of animal, and I love seeing this kind of honesty in the blogging community. Anyone struggling with blogging burnout (SO real in Q4) should read!
• These very oddly telling results of top Google searches in 2016.... 
• The holidays aren't necessarily all about cheer for me. It's about deeper reflection, appreciation, and gratitude. And I think in order to truly feel those things, it's important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture-- aka the world outside of our own little lives. Reading stories about these Syrian refugees giving birth on the journey to resettlement (all of the women who are younger than I), give perspective. Here's a start list of how to help with the crisis in Aleppo. 'Tis the season for giving, after all, and the world could use the acting upon the spirit of generosity more than ever! 

Okay, now I leave you with this wonderfully hilarious panda and snowman video if you have yet to see this glorious-ness. Feels like 1:20 is all of us in 2016😂