[Oh, Snap!] The Holiday Spirit

I don’t know if you can tell from my posts over the past month but I’m a sucker for bright lights and any excuse to gather my family and friends together with a ton of alcohol; okay, so maybe not a ton but you get the picture – the holidays are the perfect reason to don your seasons best and spread the joy with the people you covet and love. My mother was raised Methodist and my father had the first Bar Mitzvah in Corvallis, Oregon. But, being the fact-checking, science-loving, algorithm-solving people they are – I was more or less raised non-denominational which makes it slightly ironic that I love the holidays so much. In fact, I was raised on Native American and African folktalkes – but within the Venn diagram of religion and culture are beautiful morals and values you can pick and choose to take with you; and I’d like to think I took a lot of them.

For me, the holidays are a few things: firstly, they’re a time of travel – typically either to San Francisco or Portland, and with travel comes retrospection and introspection; secondly, they’re that time of the year where everyone smiles at strangers, holds the door for each other and just flat our exchanges pleasantries; and last but not least, they’re the perfect excuse to dress yourself, your house, your pets and your trees to the 9’s with festive flair and lavish lighting.

These are some of my favorite pictures I’ve been snapping around Los Angeles and Hollywood while I get into the holiday groove; hope you enjoy them as much as I do!