Life With Santa — March 2026
March has always felt like a season between seasons. The sparkle of December has long been packed away. Spring hasn’t quite taken hold. The days stretch a little longer, but the garden still looks mostly quiet.
I’ve come to appreciate this middle space.
This is my third year stepping into a different rhythm. For decades, my days had a structure that was clear and steady, responsibilities, deadlines, roles that shaped my sense of purpose. Letting go of that season didn’t happen overnight, and even when it was the right time, it took a while to feel at home in the change.
I’ve learned that these in‑between seasons show up in family life too. When our children first stepped out into their own lives, I felt that mix of celebration and quiet ache, the house suddenly spacious in ways I hadn’t expected. And now, as grandchildren grow into their own busy worlds and an adult child returns home for a time, I’m reminded that the letting‑go doesn’t happen just once. It arrives in waves. Each transition asks me to release a little, hold close what matters, and trust that love stretches to fit every new shape it takes.
Retirement, I’ve learned, does not necessarily mean stopping work. It means redefining purpose. It means creating a rhythm on your terms.
And that takes time.
It takes time to release the identity that once fit so naturally.
It takes time to discover what still stirs your heart.
It takes time to settle into the new version of yourself without rushing to prove it.
January and February can feel similar after Christmas. The season is so full, light, laughter, movement, and then suddenly it is quiet. Not empty. Just different.
March reminds me that quiet does not mean absence. It means preparation.
The workshop at the North Pole slows after December. Not because the heart of the work has ended, but because the rhythm has shifted. There is repairing. Reorganizing. Dreaming. Reconsidering how things will be done next time.
Perhaps that is what grows while we’re waiting.
Not reinvention.
Not urgency.
But alignment.
If you have stepped into a new rhythm, whether by choice or by circumstance, and you are still finding your footing, you are not behind. You are adjusting. You are learning how to live on purpose again, not because someone handed it to you, but because you are shaping it.
March does not rush the bloom. It allows the roots to strengthen first.
And sometimes what grows while we’re waiting… is clarity about who we are now.
With warmth from the North Pole,
Mrs. Claus