There’s something strange about having a birthday on December 26th. You’re not quite in Christmas anymore, and you’re not quite in the New Year either. It’s like being caught in a time warp, where the world slows down, but you’re expected to keep moving forward.
Christmas has become more than a single day. It’s a season—weeks of planning, shopping, decorating, and gathering. By the time December 25th rolls around, most people are running on fumes. And then, the day after, my birthday arrives. People want to celebrate, but they’re still picking up the pieces from Christmas. Wrapping paper is still scattered across the floor, leftovers fill the fridge, and everyone’s thinking about the next big event: New Year’s Eve.
There’s also the overlap—many are still caught up in the afterglow of Christmas celebrations. Whether it’s a family gathering that stretches into the 26th or holiday traditions that linger well beyond the 25th, my birthday often has to share the stage with a still-present Christmas spirit. It’s like trying to grab the spotlight, only to realize the holiday is still center stage, commanding the attention. Even when people pause to wish me a happy birthday, their minds are half in the holiday haze—and so is mine. It’s like face planting into a birthday cake I paid a holiday price for: I’m there, but the full experience is a little more blurred than I expected.
It feels a bit like trying to squeeze something personal and meaningful into a space that’s already been stretched thin. I can’t tell if it’s the holiday season that leaves me feeling this way or if it’s the fact that my birthday always falls into this “in-between” moment—after one big celebration and before the next. And in that space, I can’t help but reflect: Am I stressed about the holiday season, or is it the weight of another year gone by? Or Both?
This tension isn’t just about birthdays. It’s the feeling of being pulled in multiple directions, of trying to find space for yourself when everything else is demanding your attention. And I know that by trying to celebrate my birthday on the actual date, right in the middle of the holiday season, I contribute to that pull, too. It’s a choice to add one more thing into the mix, to ask people to shift their focus from Christmas to me, even for a moment. As someone who works in beauty and owns a business, this feeling is all too familiar. The beauty industry is often about the next thing: the new product, the latest trend, the fresh look. But in the midst of all that change, there’s a quiet pull to pause, reflect, and ask: What about now?
Makeup itself is like this in-between space. On one hand, it’s part of a daily routine, something familiar and comforting. But on the other, it’s about transformation, about stepping into a new version of yourself, one that aligns with where you’re headed. Like a birthday sandwiched between two holidays, makeup represents that tug between who you are and who you’re becoming.
And being a one-person business complicates this reflection even more. At the end of the year, I’m not just reflecting on my personal life or my own birthday—I’m analyzing myself in two ways. There’s the personal reflection—where am I in life, how has this year shaped me—and then there’s the business reflection—how am I as a brand, how has my business grown, and what does the next year hold? The lines blur. When your business is tied so closely to who you are, separating the two becomes its own challenge. It’s like trying to see yourself from two different perspectives at the same time, but somehow they’re overlapping, and the picture never quite comes into focus.
The truth is, the world won’t slow down. Christmas will always be a season, not just a day, and the demands of life and business will keep pulling us in different directions. But maybe the lesson in all this is that we need to find our own space in the in-between moments. To pause and ask ourselves: Am I stretched too thin because of what’s happening around me, or because I haven’t made space for myself to just be?
