writing

“The Imperfect Christmas”

/ Anne Dennish / Leave a comment

For years, when my children were younger, I tried to create the perfect Christmas.

Matching outfits. A formal Christmas portrait every year, one that would hang on our walls and become the family Christmas card. With five children, I had quite a few people to convince to cooperate with my vision.

Then one year, I let them wear whatever they wanted.

My oldest wore a bandana and went barefoot.

And you know what? I love that picture.

When I look at it now, I remember who my children were then. Their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their own little ideas about how they wanted to look. I’m glad I let those things have a place in our Christmas picture.

It took me a few years to appreciate that.

There was the Christmas when everyone had the stomach virus, and the year my little daughter spotted her dollhouse from the stairs, yelled “Christmas!” and promptly fell down the last few steps. There were pictures on Santa’s lap with someone crying when I’d been hoping for smiles and giggles.

I certainly wasn’t wishing for stomach viruses or tumbles, but all these years later, those moments are part of the Christmas stories I still tell. I can picture the excitement, hear the voices, and remember what it felt like to have all five children little and home.

I spent so much time trying to get everything just right. Now, I’m grateful for the pictures that caught things as they were, even the tears and occasional bare feet in our pictures.

My children are grown, and I can’t gather those younger versions of them around the tree again, but I have those photographs and those stories, and every December, they bring a little of that wonderful commotion back to me.

If you’re trying to get everyone dressed, smiling, and looking in the same direction this Christmas, take the picture anyway.

Someday, you will love every imperfect bit of it.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“Do You Feel Like A Priority?”

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“You’re always a priority.”

They’re reassuring words, but what happens when someone hears them and quietly wonders, “When?”

It’s something we don’t always talk about: how a person can be loved and still struggle to feel considered.

It’s a difficult conversation to have with someone you love. You worry that you’ll sound demanding or jealous, so you explain yourself carefully. You understand that there are other people to love, responsibilities to handle, and places to be. You have a life full of those things, too.

But somewhere along the way, you’ve started wondering where you fit.

You watch plans come together for other people. Time gets found. Arrangements get made. And you remember a moment when you needed that same effort—when you would have given anything for someone to recognize that you needed them and find a way to be there.

Those moments stay with us. Sometimes a new disappointment brings back an old one we thought we had put away. We find ourselves trying to explain today’s hurt while carrying something that never quite healed.

I think feeling like a priority lives in ordinary things. A call because someone wants to hear your voice. Being considered before a decision is made. A promise followed through. Someone remembering that you’re having a hard day and checking on you without being asked.

It also lives in how someone responds when you say, “I’m hurting.” Can they listen long enough to understand? Can they be curious about why their reassurance hasn’t reached you?

Because being told you matter and feeling that you matter can be two very different experiences.

Most of us don’t need every hour. We don’t expect every plan to revolve around us. We have our own work, our own dreams, and people we love. But we want to feel considered in the life we share. We want to know that when something matters deeply to us, it matters to the person beside us, too.

There can be a loneliness in having to keep explaining that. Eventually, a person may begin to wonder whether they’re asking too much, when what they’re asking for is care they can recognize.

Maybe it’s a conversation worth having in our relationships: What helps you feel like a priority? And have I shown you that lately?

The answers may be different for each of us. What feels like care to one person might not be what another needs. That’s why listening matters—and why those conversations deserve kindness.

We all want to hear that we matter.

We also need moments we can look back on and say, “That’s when I felt it.”

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“Learning to Give Yourself Grace”

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There’s a Christmas tree in my living room with lights on it and no ornaments. There are decorations waiting to find their places, things that need to be put away, and a list of things to do that seems to grow whether I’m working on it or not.

And today, I’m tired.

Of course, my first instinct is to tell myself all the things I should be doing. I should go for a walk. I should clean the house. I should finish decorating. I finally have some time to myself, and surely I should be making the most of it.

But somewhere in all those “shoulds,” I forget to ask myself a simple question: What do I need today?

I love my home. I love the people in my life. I love traveling, getting together with friends, and having things to look forward to. But I’m learning that even the things I enjoy can leave me needing a little quiet afterward. And when one thing runs into the next, it’s easy to keep going without ever giving myself that time.

Then, when the quiet finally comes, I fill it with chores.

I’ve caught myself doing that lately. Looking at an empty day as an opportunity to catch up on everything, instead of an opportunity to catch my breath. Apparently, I can give everyone else permission to be tired, but when it comes to me, I want a good explanation and an estimated time of completion.

I’m working on that.

I’m learning that I can leave a few things unfinished without letting anyone down. I can sit with my coffee a little longer. I can enjoy the lights on my tree while the ornaments stay in their boxes. I put that tree up because it brings me joy, and I’d like to leave a little room to actually feel it.

There are still things I want to do. I want less clutter and more room to breathe. I want to move my body more and take better care of myself. Those things matter to me, but I can begin with one small thing, on one ordinary day, without demanding that I change everything by dinner.

Maybe giving myself grace starts with listening when I’m tired, being honest about what I have the energy for and with speaking to myself the way I would speak to someone I love.

Today, the tree has lights. The house is a little messy. I have things to do, and I’ll get to them.

For now, I think I’ll sit here for a while and I’m learning to let that be okay.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“Why Do We Stop Dreaming Just Because We Grow Up?”

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Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us quietly pack away our dreams.

As children, we imagined without limits. We wanted to write books, travel the world, open bakeries, become artists, own little cottages by the sea, or simply live a life that felt meaningful and full. We believed anything was possible because no one had yet convinced us otherwise.

Then life happened.

Responsibilities arrived. Bills needed to be paid. Children needed to be raised. Careers demanded our attention. We learned to be practical, realistic, and responsible. Little by little, many of our dreams were placed on a shelf labeled “someday.”

But here’s what I’ve come to believe:

The dream never really dies.

It waits.

It waits through the busy years, the difficult years, the years when everyone else seems to need a piece of you. It waits patiently until one day you wake up and realize there is finally room in your life for you too.

Maybe your dream is to write a book or travel the world. Maybe it’s to learn to paint, start a business, take a dance class, or simply rediscover who you are when you’re not taking care of everyone else.

Whatever it is, age is not the reason to stop dreaming.

In many ways, growing older gives us something we didn’t have when we were young: wisdom. We know what matters and how quickly time passes. We understand that regret is often heavier than fear.

So if there’s still a dream tucked away in your heart, perhaps it’s there for a reason.

Maybe it isn’t too late.

Maybe this is the exact moment your dream has been waiting for.

After all, why should growing up mean giving up?

The child inside you is still there.

And they still believe.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“When Your Child Cuts You Off”

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There are so many conversations now about adult children who walk away from their parents. Support groups. Articles. Videos. Podcasts. Thousands of people quietly trying to survive a heartbreak that very few people truly understand unless they’ve lived it themselves. I never imagined I would be one of them. 

In the beginning, I thought it was all me. I tore myself apart looking for answers. I replayed years of motherhood in my head, wondering where I failed, what I missed, and what I could have done differently, because when you love your child with your whole heart, losing them emotionally feels like losing part of yourself. And for a long time, I carried that pain in silence because I was ashamed to even admit it was happening. 

But somewhere along the way, I realized something that changed me. Sometimes people are influenced by the voices around them. Sometimes relationships shift under the weight of outside opinions, loyalties, resentment, or stories you never even got the chance to defend yourself against. And sometimes no matter how much love you gave, it still isn’t enough to stop someone from leaving. 

So this is my truth now. I still love my child deeply. I always will but I cannot spend the rest of my life waiting at a locked door hoping someone else decides to open it. I have spent enough years grieving people who are still alive and while there will always be sadness tucked quietly inside me, there is also something else beginning to grow there too: acceptance. Peace. A life that still belongs to me. 

If you are going through this too, please know you are not alone. And please know this — your worth as a mother is not measured only by who stayed. 

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“Here’s to 2026!”

/ Anne Dennish / 2 Comments

As I sit here on the very first day of 2026, on a quiet Thursday afternoon, I can feel it: 

hope, gratitude, excitement and a sense of peace I didn’t know I was capable of.

Last year wasn’t easy. I lost my mom, and that grief changed me in ways I’m still learning to understand, yet in the middle of that heartbreak, family found its way back to me. Doors I thought were long closed opened again. Love showed up in places I never expected and I’m grateful for that.

I also lost a very good friend, gone without conversation, explanation, or closure, and while it hurt, I chose to thank them anyway. I thanked them for the years we shared, even if they never responded because sometimes people leave without warning and we may never know why. Sometimes endings don’t come with answers. Sometimes they just come.

But here’s the thing:

With endings come beginnings.

With heartbreak comes clarity.

With loss comes room for something new.

And today, on 1/1/2026, I choose to see the good that grew from the hard. I choose gratitude for what was, hope for what’s becoming, and excitement for what’s waiting for me  just beyond the horizon of this brand new year.

My mantra for 2026?

“Kiss it up to God and hand it over to the universe…and keep going.”

Here’s to a year of believing in myself, trusting the journey, loving the lessons, and welcoming every beautiful beginning that’s meant for me.

Happy New Year, my friends.

May 2026 be gentle with us, bold for us, and full of magic we never saw coming. ✨

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“I Wanna Go Back and Do It All Over”

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Do you ever hear a song on the radio that takes you back in time? One that transports you to a time when you were younger and life seemed much simpler?

It’s that song that brings you back to a precious memory, of a time when you remember being so carefree and happy.

For me it’s a song sung by Eddie Money that makes me think that “I wanna go back and do it all over, but I can’t back, I know.”

But I can’t go back. None of us can.

What we can do is hold onto those memories from a lifetime ago.

Keep them safely tucked inside of your heart.

And don’t lose sight of “now.”

When life isn’t going the way we had planned, or we’re feeling sad or depressed, or as though we’ll never be happy again, we often go back to those times.

We all do.

But don’t go back to those times and wish that you were there again.

Visit those times to remind you that you have been happy and that life was all that you wanted it to be at that time.

And let those times remind you that you can have that in the “now.” You didn’t leave happiness in your past. It was simply a different time in your life that taught you what “happiness” feels like.

Take those feelings of old memories with you into your “now.”

And let your “now” guide you into your “future.”

Life is a series of memories, good and bad, a series of life lessons, easy and hard, and a series of ups and downs. Experience is a great teacher and memories are gifts that we are given along the way.

Go back and visit if only to remind you that your “now” is just as precious as your “then.”

And remember to be grateful for it all.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“When You Weather the Weather”

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This story is for those of us that stay home during a rainy day or to all of you folks throughout the country dealing with snow, ice, and extreme freezing temperatures right now!

And it’s about how we can embrace the weather that tends to confine us to our homes.

Yesterday was a very cold day here in Florida, with non-stop torrential rain, and you know what? I was grateful for it! I turned on the soundtrack from “Under The Tuscan Sun” and cooked my homemade Italian gravy (or sauce, as some of you may prefer) with meatballs and sausage for almost eight hours. I even managed to make time to READ a book between stirring and tasting the gravy. It was a glorious, “no pressure, stay at home” cozy kind of day, and I loved every moment of it!

I know that we all grumble at times when the weather in our area confines us to our homes, but if you change your perspective on the situation, you may actually embrace and enjoy your time at home.

I love that feeling of knowing it’s a good day to stay home. It’s as if the Universe gave you permission to stay home, change your routine, relax and enjoy! It’s a day to stay in bed with the paper and your morning coffee. It’s a day to curl up with a good book in front of the fireplace, or in your favorite chair. It’s a day to stay in your pj’s or cozy in your most comfortable sweats all day. It’s a day to turn off your computer and turn on your favorite movies. It’s a day to cook your favorite comfort foods and sip your favorite hot tea.

It’s a day to do whatever you want and how often do we allow ourselves to have that kind of day?

Be grateful for the weather that keeps you home for a day or two.

Be grateful that you’re home safe and sound.

And be grateful that you’re here to embrace the day, no matter the weather.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“On Finding Joy In The Simple Things”

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It’s a cloudy, dreary Sunday here at the Jersey Shore and it’s the perfect day to make some gravy (or sauce) with sausage and meatballs. I gathered all of my ingredients early this morning, chopped some garlic, made my meatballs and sausage and turned on the soundtrack from the movie “Under The Tuscan Sun.” Life is good.

Cooking gravy (or sauce) is very therapeutic for me. It’s the process of putting the perfect combination of spices together, the constant stirring and taste testing to get it just right.

While I find this therapeutic, I realized that this brings me “joy,” and as I wrote years ago: “Joy is the elevated state of happiness.” Such a simple task of cooking yet one that truly brings me joy. 

So here I am today working on writing my next book and stirring my gravy (sauce) every so often. It’s the perfect combination of two things that bring me great joy.

What brings you joy? 

I find that sometimes it’s the simplest and smallest of things that bring us the most joy.

My wish for you is that you find joy in your life.

I often find it in mine.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

“You’re More Than You Believe You Are”

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You go through life as a wife, a mother, a husband, lover, and the title of the career you have, yet sometimes we forget who we are. I’m not one to “label” myself or anyone else, but the truth of the matter is: we are who we are.

And we shouldn’t limit ourselves to being just one thing; we should embrace all that we are.

And we are so much more than we believe we are.

And a few days ago I was reminded of the person I love to be: a writer.

Life can get busy and as you know, I’ve spent much of the last month on vacation, on location, and spending time with my kids. I’ve done some writing but not as much as I would have liked.

I’m still in the throws of cleaning my flooded basement and getting some rest from endless weeks of traveling. Laundry is getting behind the eight ball and dishes are piling in the sink. The refrigerator needs to be refilled and doctors appointments need to made.

And then something important happened…

I had a lunch meeting with a client I’m ghostwriting for.

And I was reminded of something I love to be: a writer.

And it was an incredible feeling.

I felt reborn and back on track. I felt energized and ready to create and write.

Throughout our meeting of note taking, working, talking, and organizing, he said one thing to me that made all the difference in the world: “I leave this all up to you, after all, you’re the writer.”

Really? I am? I know I’m a mom, a significant other, a friend, daughter and sister, but a writer?

Well, sir, yes I am!

It’s not that I forget that I’m a writer but I forget how it FEELS to be a writer and that feeling is one of passion. I forgot how the passion feels, how incredible it feels, and how awesome it is to be doing what I love to do every single day of my life: WRITE!

I was exhausted after all the traveling and cleaning in the last few weeks, but today I felt rejuvenated. All that tired energy left my body and I felt as though a very high energy replaced it…and I’m so grateful that it did.

Sometimes we all need a reminder of that feeling of doing what we’re passionate about.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we’re so much more than we believe we are.

I’m grateful for that meeting.

I’m grateful to be able to write every day.

And I’m grateful to remember what it feels like to be a WRITER!

Take a moment today to remember all that you are…because you are so much more than you believe you are!

It’s a good thing.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

much more

Photo courtesy of Rob Contreras