Vince Guaraldi is a genius. (In case you’re asking, “Who is Vince Guaraldi?,” he composed the music for A Charlie Brown Christmas.) This genius became apparent to me on Saturday morning at Chick-Fil-A, when Chris and I stopped for a disgustingly delicious fast food breakfast after the gym. The tinsel, the lights, the Santa hats, the small tree, the “my pleasure!” perkiness of the counter staff — none of this made me feel like Christmas. But when those mournful, slightly discordant, slightly hopeful, hazy notes — doo doo do, duh doo doo do — played over the speakers, I looked outside onto the cold rainy day and felt Christmas all the way down to my toes.

What is it about Christmas that blends the bitter with the sweet? Why does it always bring that moment — sometimes early, sometimes late in the day — of heartbreak and nostalgia and longing? When the children were little, Christmas was easier — It was easier to step outside myself and experience vicariously their joy. The wrapping paper, the toys, the expectation, the excitement! But not so much with teenagers, when Santa takes on a decidedly practical streak, with school clothes and gift cards and books.

But there have been sparks this year. I sat in a high school auditorium listening to the school’s choral and orchestral program a few weeks ago, and during one song — an African carol I had never heard, in a language I didn’t understand — I broke into tears on about the second note and wept openly. It was beautiful. It was hopeful. It was inspiring. It filled me with joy.

I have thought about that fleeting moment a lot lately. I wish that I could bottle it and apply the contents liberally as needed. (Sadly, no.) But for the first time in a long time, I am looking forward to Christmas. Wait. That’s overstating it. For the first time in a long time, I am peaceful as Christmas approaches. And I chalk it up to this.

Even before going through a heavy Elvis Costello stage in college (who can forget “Every Day I Write the Book”?), I thought of my life as a book, with each year a chapter. An arbitrary chapter, no doubt, spanning 365 days (366 days, every fourth year) and ending December 31. How would that year’s chapter end? Would it be a cliffhanger? Would it roll easily into the next? Would there be continuity? Would there be lessons learned? December 25 comes awfully close to the end of each year’s chapter; it’s too late for forced gaiety or a dramatic change of course.

After a rocky start by its author, this year’s chapter has been a good one. Missteps have been corrected. Slights have been forgiven. Disputes have been resolved. Burdens have been lifted. And after a few years that can be described (charitably) as simply awful or downright ghastly (your choice), I have wandered out of the woods. I can look at my life and — perhaps briefly, perhaps fleetingly — find peace and joy and comfort. Which is what Christmas is supposed to be about.

It hit me while I was mopping the kitchen floor yesterday. For years, we had a cleaning service. The workers were very cheerful, but they approached cleaning the house like a fleet of sugared-up eight year-olds on Shetland ponies with polo mallets. Paint got chipped, many things got broken, every thing else got bleached and discolored, newly damaged furniture got propped up, and remnants of their carelessness got hidden in the trash. When I realized what a terrible mood having a cleaning service put me in, I looked past their cheerfulness and fired them.

Which led me to cleaning my own house again. I have found that spending 20 minutes a day on order helps: I can stay on top of things, and I can prevent a lot of disorder. And as I spent 20 minutes yesterday mopping, this thought hit me like a ton of bricks: It is good to clean up after yourself, because then you’re confronted with the mess you’ve made. Amen.

If you were to look into my house — the very house now being cleaned by me — on December 25, I think that you would see A Very Low-Key Christmas. A family. A dog. A small bright tree. A kiss under mistletoe. You would hear laughter and music and ripping paper and loving words and those sweet tiny digs that only those you love best can make. You would smell waffles. And you would find me there: happy, nostalgic, maybe a wee bit melancholy, pleased with this year’s chapter.

Merry Christmas.

In our last real conversation before her death, my grandmother grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “When I look at your face, I can still see you as a little girl.” This may be the highest compliment that anyone has ever given me. I was in my 30s, and I loved then — and I love now — that the child was still there, discernible to the naked eye. I mentioned this comment to a group of friends last night, and when we were walking home from dinner, one of them said to me, “In 2015, I want you to teach me how to be a girl.”

This intrigued me. I am such a girl; it is just who I am. And before anyone gets up in arms about the fact that I am actually a woman, simmer down. No doubt, I am a woman — I am well past the age of girlhood, with many adult responsibilities and burdens and a mortgage and a bigger waist and less dewy skin. You got me. Yet I still think of myself as a girl, and now that I have been invited to instruct someone else on that very thing, it has made me think about what that means to me.

Here is what I decided: It means being the plucky heroine of my own life, with the sense of adventure and enjoyment and zest that I had when I was young. To that end, I offer these thoughts.

1. Then and now. When I was little, I walked around singing and dancing and chattering (always chattering!). My mother used to tell me, “Someone has a happy heart!” ( “Someone has a happy heart!” may very well have been a euphemism for “Someone needs a mute button!,” but I have always appreciated my mother’s take on the situation.) What did you enjoy doing when you were young? Chances are, you would enjoy doing it now. This explains my currently taking dance classes and singing in a choir. I remember writing — always writing! — on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper and in notebooks; I now blog. When I was in college, I jotted down a Thomas Jefferson quote: “As I grow older, I find that I love most what I loved first.” It’s true.

2. Take care of what you love. We all had cherished items as kids. Mine was my impressive Barbie collection, complete with an airplane, a cruise ship, a dream house, clothes, dolls, shoes. I cataloged it and rearranged, and kept it safe. For hours. For days. For years. I never minded it. Same with my blue and white bike, with the giant handlebars and the banana seat. I washed it, made flowers and streamers for it, clipped a card to its wheels to make it extra fabulous. Just because I loved it.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by your responsibilities. It is easy to view them as burdens. It is easy to shut down because you’re so pissed off that you have all of these responsibilities and burdens. Instead of dwelling on responsibilities and burdens, I tell myself instead that I take care of things that I love. This helps to reduce friction when I do the laundry or clean the house, go to a grinding day of work, or drag myself to exercise when I’m not exactly feeling it. I do these things because I love my family and I love myself, not because I’ve been subjugated beyond all measure, damn you. (You get the drift — even if you think I have served up a liberal glass of the proverbial Kool-Aid — but it helps me.)

3. Say yes. As I got older, I found I got scared. Life seemed a little too narrow, the path seemed a little too familiar, the comforts seemed a little too comfortable. Despite all of the familiarity, I felt like a visitor in my own life. On my 45th birthday, I decided to start saying yes to all invitations and outings (within reason). This explains why I hiked the Appalachian Trail with my son, went to a concert with my daughter five hours away (and avoided becoming a crowd surfer), and have taken an enormous number of road trips in recent months. In a lot of ways, it has been like exploring the spooky woods in my old subdivision, riding my bike all over town, traveling with my parents to places I’ve never been. (In some ways, it has been a whole lot better: I have my own money, and I can go where I want to go.)

4. Save. I used to babysit for $1/hour. I saved my money like crazy — dollar bills in a drawer that I would take out and count. When I was 12, I bought a $40 purse with my own money. I still have that purse. Part of (actually) being a girl for me was the constant realization that tomorrow would come, and I’d best be prepared for it. So I still save, and when finances and whims permit, I still blow a little bit on luxuries. Make your own Christmas, baby.

5. Dress to tell the world who you are. When I could dress myself, I remember donning fake fur coats, multi-colored suede shoes, hats, jewelry, purses — too much. I still do. It makes me happy, and it transmits to the world in an instant who I am (God help us all): Bright, colorful, a little off-kilter. It sparks conversations, and it lets me make connections. And as I get older, that’s one thing that I realize the kids have on us: the ability to connect for an instant, to juggle 52 best friends, to stumble around perfectly certain of their little corner of the world.

When I look at pictures of myself, 40 years apart, some things remain. There are the physical similarities: straight, baby fine auburn hair, green eyes, a round face, a freckled nose. And then there’s what my grandmother was talking about. I can never keep my mouth shut when I am truly happy. My eyes take on a mad gleam sometimes, My hands are waving. My clothes are bright. And I am typically in the middle of something. Then and now, I am a girl.