Here's my writing-related resolution for 2025

Plus, snapshots from a hotel Christmas in Atlanta, Georgia

Happy holidays!

Here is a photo of a Christmas mug given to me by my family that makes me feel truly seen:

This mug is a strong contender for the Best Gift Courtney received in 2025. This is my family’s breakfast table in Georgia. I don’t think you can see him but there is an adorable Newfoundland doggo just behind the center chair.)

Me and my new mug are freshly back from Georgia where I spent the beginning of vacation with the half of my family that’s based in Ellijay, Georgia. Historically, tensions get high around the holidays in the Maum fam, so my husband, daughter and I ducked out on the 23rd for a hotel Christmas in Atlanta while the vibes were still merry and bright. I have never spent Christmas in a hotel before. I’ve also never been to Atlanta, unless we count the airport, which I’ve been to many times. For our hotel holiday, I packed Christmas lights and my kiddo’s stocking to keep things festive, and we purposefully chose a hotel with an indoor pool, as pool-swimming is something my eleven year old adores. (If you are a parent and you’re curious how I sold this hotel Christmas to a pre-teen, I bribed her, obviously. Starbucks, an elaborate manicure, a hotel with a pool. That is how I roll.)

While I’m happy to be home now, reunited with our house, its frozen pipes, and our orange cat, let me tell you something major about the hotel holiday just behind us. For four blissful days, I didn’t wash a dish. I didn’t have a dish. I didn’t touch an oven and I didn’t meal plan. I didn’t grocery shop for anything except potato chips and wine. I returned home this afternoon with a new lease on my own life. Everyone has joyful little things that restore them to their smiley factory settings: apparently, not having to grocery shop, meal prep and do dishes is mine.

Our hotel room Christmas Eve spread and lunch at El Ponce the next day (thank you for being open, for the cooking and the dishes: your salsa was excellent as was the Mezcal margarita and your festive Hornitos holiday sweatshirts.)

For twenty-four hours, I was convinced we had the entirety of the midtown Atlanta Hyatt Centric to ourselves until day two when I spotted another human in the elevator with a reusable grocery bag filled with who knows what. (Did I point at him and announce: Another human!!!, thus mortifying my tween? I did exactly that.) We were on our way to the pool, the big winner of our holiday. It was filled with salt water and gently heated and it felt incredible to swim in warm salt water while it was -10 back home.

If you haven’t been to Atlanta and want to know the best things to do there, I’m not the person to ask. This might come as a surprise to you given how strongly I feel about time management and productivity in general, but on vacation, I like to be exceptionally lethargic. I like—very much—to rest and loaf around. While I come up with a general list of marks to hit in whatever place we’re visiting, I don’t create itineraries or fill the days with activities and sights because number one, I think that swaths of unplanned time are a tremendous luxury and number two, I like to leave room for happenstance and spontaneity inside my holidays. Because we were on the slow boat of vacation planning, we were able to achieve both:¹

First photo of EATS is borrowed from "Atlanta Eater" because I do not take food pics; second is the gorgeous tablescape at my childhood friend's gorgeous Atlanta home

We ate collard greens and jerk chicken at a soul food joint called EATS. On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed an elegant lunch (complete with festive tablescape) at the home of my best friend from childhood. We got holiday nail treatments for the whole family, including the first-ever pedicure for my husband. Though my daughter’s Christmas tree nail art promptly came off in the aforementioned swimming pool, I saved the day with an ultra toxic nail glue purchased from the nearest CVS and we glued those suckers back on. We rented extremely speedy electric scooters and scooted up and down the Atlanta Beltline but because we are effectively country bumpkins, we had to descend after learning how much the Lime scooters were charging for our thirty-minute jaunt. For the evening of the 24th, my daughter set up a home spa and treated my husband and I to facial massages with warm washcloths and hotel body lotion. We did a champagne toast with deli salami and cheese cubes before climbing into bed to watch an unholy amount of HGTV.

Frankly, our hotel holiday was perfect. I feel rested and rejuvenated and extremely grateful to the people working the receptions and lobbies and cook lines of the places that we frequented, and heartily enjoyed.

I honestly think my daughter has a future as an aesthetician—she's got the magic touch.

---

Next up? New Years.

I’ve always been big on December 31^st —in my book, the changing of one year to another is a Major Life Event. I mean, I’m a Virgo. An entire holiday dedicated to making lists of things that one will do, or not do, accomplish or get rid of in the coming year is my personal paradise.

I used to be hardcore about New Year’s resolutions. I mean, they would contain multiple pages of things that I had to accomplish less I lose my identity and self-worth. In the last decade (since becoming a mother, really), I’ve started to chill out. Mostly now I come up with a mental health goal to work toward. Accordingly, my 2025 resolution is to absorb, believe and model to others that good art takes the amount of time it takes. This is a revelation I came to recently that I made a video about—posting that below in hopes it might inspire others to understand, accept, and even admire that your novel, your dream agent, your byline in the New York Times, all your writing goals and dreams and hopes—they are going to take the time they need to manifest. How much time? (Shrugs.) Time. Art time has no number. Art time has no clock. There is quality, and then there is the opposite of quality, which is being rushed and ill-prepared and frantic and desperate. Let’s not make time for those crappy-ass feelings in 2025.

Here’s the video I mentioned that shares my revelation on this topic:

---

Care to show and tell?

What about you? Will you share your 2025 resolutions with us? What you resolve to do, what you resolve not to do, or perhaps why you’re not making New Year’s resolutions this year? I’m excited to read what you’re willing to share— let’s encourage and support each other in the comments toward our respective goals.

Meanwhile, I wish you peace and silliness and rest in the remaining days of 2024.

Thanks for being here and happy holidays,

Courtney

1. Hilary, if you are reading this: I did make an exception for our mother-daughter trip to Florida for which I made a full itinerary. You are the exception to my vacation slothfulness.