I’m back from my extended hiatus! Part of why I paused writing was because I turned a hobby into a chore. I took my inspiration and squashed it by adding rules & stress into the mix. I was adding deadlines and designing systems for myself that just weren’t feasible.
At the time of my life when I created those plans, I was also making to-do lists with projects. Meaning, I would write down only one line on my to-do list of a several step project. One time, it took me an entire year to do what I thought was a weekly or even monthly to-do list.
So I’m back and taking a new approach to content creation. I’m also taking a new approach on what types of content I want to be creating. I am going to focus on Life & Adventure, Beauty & Style, and Career & Growth!
Today is the first of a new series I’m writing about in 2026. Remember how Gilmore Girls had a festival for everything? I decided to make it my own. No, I’m not planning huge community events. I’m planning personal festivals. Some of these festivals will be intimate (party of two); others will involve friends & family.
Back in September, I was in a mindfulness class where we were tasked with evaluating our life and looking ahead to the next year.
The thought that popped into my head and hasn’t left since is
“Is this a life I’m proud to be living?”
And from there my head went into a spiral in so many different directions. The one that is pertinent to festivals is how I was spending my time. Before 2026, our calendar always filled up with plans before we had a moment to add ours into the mix. Our Fall 2025 calendar was already planned to the max, so we decided to start thinking differently as we sat down to plan 2026.
Let me make one thing extremely clear: it was less about who we were seeing and more about the activities once we were all together. I’m tired of “Let’s hang” or we’ll figure out what we’re doing when we’re together aka let’s sit on the couch or let’s grab dinner. Going out to dinner will always have a time & a place. It’s an easy activity to do on a whim, but I’m a planner. After using my planning skills to throw a wedding (June 2025), I had all of this event planner energy, and nowhere to use it.
Enter: Personal Festivals
I landed on naming them festivals for the Gilmore Girls tie in, but also because it makes the plan into an event. My husband and I have planned 12* festivals for 2026. At first, we were going to include at-home festivals, but decided that it is way easier to get into the spirit if you have to leave the house. Some will be local and others will require traveling.
*Some months won’t have a dedicated festival event because we’re already on a big adventure together (like our Mexico trip in January or our delayed Japan honeymoon in October). The goal is adventure, not checking boxes.
Each festival has a fun name (because of course), a dress code, an activity, and some optional extras. As I sat down to plan our festivals, I thought about what is missing in my life now that used to bring me joy. One way that I used to express my creativity was dressing up for themed mixers in college. On top of trying to get back into my fashion & makeup challenges, I decided to design my festivals so I’d have a great opportunity to express my creativity each month.
February’s Festival: Heart & Art
February is the month of Sam’s birthday (my husband). While orchestrating our calendar, I always keep this in mind for any February plans. He’s been mentioning wanting to check out the Montclair Art Museum. From there, the rest of the festival unfolded. The art museum is not that big and we are not an all-day-at-the-art-museum couple. In fact, we’ve been together for 11 years and this was our first art museum together.
At this point in the planning, I had “Art”. It didn’t feel complete enough. Since we were going to be local, I added brunch at Toast Montclair because we’ve also been talking about wanting to try more brunch spots in town. Selfishly, brunch is my favorite, so why not have an excuse to go. Remember when festival planning, you can add any activities that bring you joy.
It will sound crazy to some, but when we looked at the calendar, there was only one open weekend available: Valentines’ Day Weekend. With that, The Heart & Art Festival was born.
*We are not big Valentine’s Day celebrators. For me, if you only show romance and that you love me once a year because Hallmark or some saint told you to, I’m not sure we’re going to make it.
The name will always help inspire a theme and therefore, a dress code for the event. Heart & Art was screaming for “Artsy Valentine” which could be interpreted as pops of red & pink with fun accessories. Now onto the extras, I’m not going to lie, going forward this is where my festival planning could lose some of you. For February, we added a little game while we were walking around the museum. Guess what inspired a particular piece. Wrong answers only.
Now that we’ve experienced our first festival, I’m hooked. I can’t wait for our next one.
These festivals will all be different in so many ways, but they’re all about the same thing: choosing adventure over routine.
Challenge: Take 10 minutes to answer these 3 reflective questions.
- Is this a life I’m proud to be living?
- What is missing in my life that used to bring me joy?
- What am I going to do about it?
For any new readers, for starters, welcome! I like to end all of my posts with a challenge to my audience (and myself).
