A Letter on Knowing When Enough Is Enough
My Dearest Friend,
There is a particular hour on December 23rd that never makes it into the photographs, the quiet stretch of time that exists not at the end of the season but just before it gathers itself again. It arrives after the lists have been worked and reworked, after the counters have been cleared for the last time, after the dough has been mixed and set aside to rest where it belongs, waiting for morning. It is not a dramatic moment, nor a peaceful one exactly, but it is familiar—a pause shaped by effort, held together by intention.
I am usually in the kitchen then, moving slowly at last, wiping flour from the counters where it settles no matter how careful I am. The potatoes are finished, the lefse dough resting, the vegetables chopped and tucked neatly away for tomorrow, each small task completed not because it must be perfect, but because I know what it feels like to rush, and I am trying—deliberately, imperfectly—to be kind to the version of myself who will wake up to a full house. The work has shifted from urgency to preparation, from striving to stewardship, and my hands know what to do even as my mind begins, finally, to quiet.
Where the Work Pauses, Briefly
In those moments, as the kitchen returns to something like order, I am often struck by the sense that this scene has played out countless times before me. This is what my grandmothers’ kitchens must have looked like, year after year—unremarkable and well-used, bearing the soft evidence of care. Not staged or polished, but lived in. A light dusting of flour, counters wiped down before rest, work set aside not because it was finished in every detail, but because it was finished enough to carry the day that followed.
This is not the pause at the end of the season, the exhale that comes when everything is over. It is the breath taken while standing in the doorway, hands finally still, before stepping back into the noise and movement of what is to come. It is the quiet recognition that nothing more can be added without asking something back in return, and that continuing to press forward will not necessarily make what follows more meaningful—only more exhausting.
The Lesson
It has taken me years of hosting, loving, overextending, and learning the hard way to understand this slowly: there is a point at which effort stops adding meaning. Not because you did not try hard enough, but because you have already given what matters most. The extra hour, the final dish, the last detail added deep into the night rarely makes the gathering more sacred. More often, it only leaves the host worn thin, arriving at the moment they worked so hard to create already spent.
Good enough, in these moments, is not settling. It is choosing presence over performance—choosing to arrive as yourself rather than as the flawless version you imagine everyone else expects. Rest is not something you earn by completing the list; it is something you protect, because without it you lose the very thing you were trying to preserve. If perfection leaves you too tired to laugh, too overwhelmed to be gentle, too spent to be present, then perfection has stolen something it had no right to take.
To the Spouse Who Is Still Standing
If you are staring at an unfinished list on December 23rd, wondering if you did enough, still telling yourself there is just one more thing to do before you can sit down. I see you because I have been you—standing long past midnight, pushing through exhaustion because stopping felt harder than continuing, convinced that the season depended on my endurance. I only know what I know now because I learned it the hard way.
If staying on your feet means you will arrive at the gathering hollowed out, brittle, and unable to enjoy the very thing you worked to create, then the cost is too high. Some years, presence is the offering. Some years, what you have the capacity to give looks different than it did before, and that does not make it lesser. There are seasons when pizza is Christmas dinner, when things are still being finished as people arrive, when the house is imperfect and the heart is tired—and none of that diminishes what you are giving.
If you are still standing, still striving, still holding the weight of everyone else’s experience in your hands, let this be your permission to sit down. Let it be enough to have done what you could, to trust that what remains undone will not undo what matters. Nothing meaningful is lost when you choose yourself for a moment. Everything you are offering becomes steadier when you do.
