This year’s Christmas was a quiet kind of wonderful. Mostly because everyone was healthy, which is a top-tier gift — especially if you remember how my holiday started last year.

Genesee has been counting down to this day since about August, blasting Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You during shower time every morning just to prepare. I, too, was excited for the season, but when you’re an established, critical-thinking 11-year-old like me, the magic of the holiday feels different than it did when I was 10. It’s still fun — just in a more grown-up way, you know?

Most traditions stayed intact, with a few new ones added in:

• Aunt Julie organized some games involving red Solo cups — no alcohol, just silliness, strategy, and high-stakes bragging rights.
  
• I greeted guests on Christmas morning by serenading them with my newly acquired saxophone skills, tip jar included. Because that’s what you call a bold entrepreneurial move!
  
• We also had some friendly foosball competition on the table I got last year for Christmas… which inconveniently arrived with a crack that is now fixed.

It was the year of vanity mirrors, Ulta makeup, Birkenstocks, Nike socks, and golf gear…. and not a classic white Christmas (it was actually pretty warm), but it was full of good quality time, laughter, rest, and the familiar comfort of being together. And really, that’s the part that matters most. Because even though Mariah Carey has been annoyingly stuck in my head, on repeat for months, she might actually be right: all I want for Christmas is you.

Bruce Mound. Snow. Boards. Skis. And my cousin Cortney (pro level snowboarder in my book).

She invited me and Genesee for a quick adventure close to home, and somehow made a small hill feel legendary. She ripped down those slopes while making it look unfairly easy. I learned things. Genesee got braver. Dad was a good chaperone. And we all agreed: having cool cousins is basically a life cheat code.

Best kind of day. 10/10 adventure. Would follow her down a hill again.