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On Fridays, we’ll take a breath: See below for some commentary on apparel trends I’m loving or things I’m eyeing, a fun activity to consider, and some food for thought as you enter your weekend 🙂
Quick reminder: With the holidays approaching, I’ll be leaning in to spending time with family and friends and moving to a shorter version of The Root 9 through year-end. I’ll be sharing Motivation on Mondays, What I Learned This Week on Wednesdays, and Food For Thought on Fridays. I’m going to take some of that time back from preparing a shorter newsletter to think about next year, including what is in store for The Root 9 and how I am thinking about evolving it as we approach its anniversary in February 🙂 And, in the spirit of The Root 9, being more present during the holidays, closing the year out strong, and recharging. I hope you are able to do the same ❤️
Food for Thought
What traditions will we hold onto from our families and what new ones will we create?
Leading up to this Christmas Eve, Dylan and I spent time reflecting on the legacy rooted in our holidays through family traditions and which new customs we wanted to build ourselves.
Christmas Eve has always been the most important holiday for my family, and we decided to carry forward three major elements from a Bulgarian Christmas Eve and Greek Orthodox roots into our first one as as small little family of two: 1) preparing a vegan meal; 2) ensuring there was an odd number of dishes on the table (specifically seven, nine, or eleven) to invite luck and prosperity into our home; 3) baking the traditional baking soda pita bread.
But…we added our own little twist. My dad historically decorated the bread with Bulgarian symbols and Dylan surprised me by creating two birds on the bread. We loved the idea of continuing this as our own twist on the pita. In the future, we want to include as many “Byrds” on the pita as there are people sitting at our dinner table.
On that note & as the new year approaches, are there any traditions you want to initiate to start the year off? You still have a couple of days to problem solve 🙂
I'm so grateful you've taken the time to read and engage with the newsletter. To help me make it better, I'd love to hear any thoughts or feedback you have. Feel free to send any requests, ideas, or suggestions to [email protected]!
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