I loved the holidays as a child. Not because of the gifts or glitter, but because of family—because of us. As the school breaks approached, I could barely wait. Cousins running wild day and night, spontaneous sleepovers at my grandparents’ house, huge meals that somehow felt sacred and chaotic all at once. All of us opening gifts together in a burst of sound and laughter and mess. It wasn’t just magical—it was Magick. And I truly believed it would always be this way.
But like so many families, the center couldn’t hold. After my grandparents passed, things began to fade. Not slowly—suddenly. People didn’t split the holidays between families; they simply… left. Chose elsewhere. Chose always. And while I understand—we all have different paths, different orbits—our side of the table stayed empty. Not divided. Just missing.
And here’s the truth I carry with a quiet ache:
My daughter doesn’t get what I had.
She doesn’t get the packed houses or the noise. She doesn’t get the full days of play and story and pretend. She gets me and her mom—and we give her our best. We play, we invent rituals, we craft meaning out of moments. And some of it, truly, feels like Magick.
But still—it’s not the same.
This morning, I found myself thinking not with bitterness, but with softness:
If you’re gathered with family this year, I hope you truly feel it.
I hope you let it soak into your skin, because it can disappear in the blink of an eye.
And for those of us holding space in smaller circles, I want to say: this still matters. You are not less. The echo is not the absence.
Here’s where the Mirror comes in:
Families, at their best, once acted like a hall of mirrors—each person reflecting something back to you. A laugh that sounded like your own. A shared memory. A rhythm of love passed down across generations. When those mirrors disappear, we often feel distorted, like we’re seeing ourselves less clearly.
But here’s what I’m learning:
When the external mirrors fade, the work becomes internal.
We become the mirror.
We reflect for our children. We reflect for ourselves.
We hold the shape of what once was—not out of nostalgia, but out of reverence.
And we create new Magick, even if it’s quieter, even if it doesn’t echo the past.
So if you’re with your people today: see them. Not just as roles—parent, cousin, partner—but as mirrors. As brief, beautiful reflections of something shared. Something fleeting.
And if you’re not: you are still surrounded. By memory. By becoming. By the mirrors you’ve kept and the ones you’ve begun to grow inside.