10 Beautiful Things, vol. 38

Christmas festivities and gratitudes

Good morning!

This is 10 Beautiful Things, which normally goes out on Tuesdays. The fact that I missed posting it until the week after I normally would means that it might be time to begin my holiday break here. I will be back in the new year with my annual reading roundup post, some longer essays I’ve been dreaming up for this space, and of course, a continuation of 10 Beautiful Things. Consider this your Christmas card, and/or an introduction to our life if you are a new subscriber. Thanks for being here!

It has been a big year. In September, after a year of saving, planning, and praying for things to work out, Jake and I packed up our lives and moved from Northern Virginia to St Andrews, Scotland, and I started a PhD at the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. We joined a church that meets in a bowling club, got jobs, hosted a few family members and friends who came to visit us, and taught new friends how to play my favorite card game. (I dream of euchre tournaments in the new year…) We adapted to a tiny fridge and three months of no Internet in our flat. We both got more creative in the kitchen (me with baking, Jake with pizza topping combinations at his job).

And I kept writing this weekly missive, and as always, the search for beauty has been life-giving. This is a thesis of my life, something I wish I could tell every person: beauty can be found, and it can find us and transform us where we are. Goodness and mercy are surely following you and me.

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1. Listening to Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas album while studying. (This would also be a great album for Christmas cooking/baking this week. Why not do your nervous system a favor?)

2. Blue hour evening light in my kitchen. (Technically not evening because it happens at 3:30pm…but still beautiful.)

   

3. Watching the Lord of the Rings films with friends who don’t know the story. Priceless reactions.

4. Beginning to plan a research trip and a friend UK visit!

5. A day trip to Edinburgh to visit Scotland’s largest Christmas market with Jake.

   

6. On that note, it’s been a long time since I’ve visited the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, and Tuesday’s visit did not disappoint!

   

7. The satisfaction of getting the kitchen really, really clean.

8. Bonfires and beach ceilidh-ing.

9. Winter trees back in Northern Virginia.

   

10. Our last week in St Andrews was marked by friends dropping by — to cowork with me, hang out after a work shift, eat dinner at my kitchen table, play euchre, or say goodbye until we all return from break in the new year. It’s been a long time since Jake or I have been new to a place, building community from the ground up, which can bring about fresh uncertainties and fresh loneliness. But when we return to our little coastal-town home in January, we’ll be returning to a handful of new friendships that we really treasure.

What’s something beautiful you found this week?

Merry Christmas, friends!