It’s time to light our Jack-O-Lanterns, pass out Halloween candy, fill our bellies with Thanksgiving turkey, shop for Christmas presents, toast each other on New Year's Eve, and love these crazy, unpredictable last few months of the year.

We are about to enter that period between Halloween and New Year’s, also known as the Holiday Season. Don’t you love this time of year with its copious amounts of food, revelry, togetherness, and goodwill? But if we’re being honest, don’t you kind of hate a few things about it, too? Things like:

Pumpkin Flavored Everything - When pumpkin-flavored food and beverages start showing up in August, I’m smitten. Mmmmmm….. Ahhhhhhhhhh…. The smell alone is a bit of heaven that I could inhale all day. But then it snowballs until you can’t go anywhere without being bombarded by pumpkin-flavored everything. Pasta sauce, avocado oil, bourbon, dog treats, TOILET PAPER??!!

Shopping for Gifts - I enjoy the giving part of the holidays, except I’m embarrassed to tell you that I’ve never been good at choosing presents. I’ll be like, “Oooooh, this is so cute…for me.” Would you think less of me if I admitted I prefer to keep things simple, buy a stack of gift cards, and call it a day? Except I’ve been informed that it’s not always fun for people to open on Christmas morning—Le sigh.

Holiday Food - I’m good at convincing myself it’s okay to eat 2059960403 Christmas cookies because I’ll work them off on Monday and because I’m the Queen of Self Control when I want to be. <cough> I’m sure there’s a veggie tray at each holiday gathering, but I can never find it. (Am I looking hard? Hell no!) Besides, who wants to nibble on a carrot stick with a dollop of ranch dressing when you can treat yourself to chocolate for the half year between Halloween and Easter?

Christmas Music Everywhere - There’s something magically delicious about Christmas music. The radio stations start playing it after Thanksgiving, with a few jumping in immediately after Halloween. I love driving in the car, humming and singing along - until around the first week of December, when I’m convinced there are only 15 Christmas songs in existence. Why, why, why must we hear the same ones on repeat?

Speaking of Christmas songs, “Santa Baby” is one of the weirdest (besides that ridiculous song about a hippopotamus); I didn’t realize until recently that “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” implied that Daddy was Santa Claus and Mommy was not an adulterer, and somebody needs to rescue the “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” lady from that creepy man.

Holiday Memories—I’m thankful in many ways for the memories, but have you noticed how growing older means that the holidays don’t feel as magical as they used to? On the one hand, you enjoy making everyone’s Christmas memorable, but on the other hand, you wish you could go back in time and be that 7-year-old kid on Christmas Eve. Or is that just me?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy this time of year. So much love is wrapped around the holiday season, but things aren’t always picture-perfect. I wish the weeks between Halloween and New Year’s could be in soft focus like a Hallmark movie, with happy smiles and a kumbaya vibe. But the reality is that holidays are a mix of happiness, crabbiness, giving, taking, overeating, parental self-doubt, togetherness, separateness, feeling overwhelmed, joy, aloneness, and so much more.

But let’s not dwell on the negative. It’s time to light our Jack-O-Lanterns, pass out Halloween candy, fill our bellies with Thanksgiving turkey, shop for Christmas presents, toast each other on New Year's Eve, and love these crazy, unpredictable last few months of the year before January 2nd, when we return to our diets, our real lives and that feeling of relief that the holidays are over.

Happy Hallo-Thanks-Mas!

Here are a few photos of the family from previous holidays: