December means winter festivity in Cologne, and a whirlwind of activities to complete and celebrate the year!
As evidenced by the publishing of this article in January, my personal completion process continues into the New Year, as I prefer to reflect on the month once it is complete. At the annual shift there are many things to be present to, plan for, and look back upon and I want to set the tone for gentle action and growth as we embark on a New Year.
December’s Completion & Celebrations
In December all of my Ballet students successfully passed their Royal Academy of Dance-style examination, displaying improved technique and artistry. I’m so proud of their progress and eager to proceed to the next level(s) with my dancers!
Amidst a month of festivity, I continued to create and publish, enjoy the artistic work of others, and begin the process of reflecting on the past year as a whole and dreaming and planning the next.
December brought winter both symbolically, at the seasonal transition of the Winter Solstice, and in reality as temperatures were cold and days short here in Cologne. We began taking Vitamin D and this really helps lighten the mood and boost the immune system!
So fortunate to be blessed by feasts of celebration and rituals marking the Winter Solstice, Christmas, my girlfriend’s birthday, and Silvester/New Year’s Eve! Also baked batches of cookies: chocolate chip, sugar cookies to decorate, and ginger snaps, received and wrote a few letters. Lots of opportunities to play with my new fountain pens and inks, which I savored.
After the swirl of last classes, sessions, and Christmas celebrations, I enjoyed a bit of deep-rest staycation, cuddled in my flannel sheets with the cat, recovering and processing an eventful year before the explosion of midnight into 2025.
Bullet Journaling & Planning
The above YouTube Video is a flip-through of the month in my Seasonal Book including goals, glows, media favorites, and events I recorded along the way.
I shared my initial setup on Instagram here and continued to update my Monthly, Weekly, and Daily logs, Annual Collections, and especially started setting up my January and 2025 Annual Book spreads. A bit of Christmassy decor was good for my soul.
Received supplies for my 2025 Annual and Spring Seasonal Books and considered my upcoming Word of the Year, themes and projects, visual design theme. Also watched a lot of fun videos of folks’ Notebook Lineups and Planner/BuJo Set-Ups for the New Year as well as current pen & ink pairings to inspire correspondence and journaling.
Teaching & Coaching
Regular Mindful Movement classes in Balletlicious Ballet Barre+ and Yummy Gentle Yoga continued throughout, and studio classes in Ballet and Barre a Terre continued, working at full capacity.
There are a couple of coaching slots available in the New Year and I will keep you posted on further offerings as they come together!
Writing & Publishing Articles
In December I published two articles to the blog:
- November was for Being Grateful & Grieving- 2024 Month 11 Review which summarized highlights and events the prior month
- Winter Wonders & Warmers: a Bucket List for Dark but Festive Times / Solstice – Return of the Light is a compilation of all of my favorite ways to enjoy the colder, darker time of year and a resource I look forward to referring to in the future
Filming & Sharing Videos
I didn’t quite reach 1,000 subscribers to the A Blythe Coach YouTube Channel before the end of 2024, but hope to attain this milestone in 2025. The practice of sharing my work, my favorite things, and refining my voice was personally valuable, as well as engagement with likeminded community online and in person.
I published six videos to the A Blythe Coach YouTube Channel in December on the topics of dance, creativity, and joyful living:
Connecting: Email & Social Media
The best way to keep up-to-date on everything I’m coaching, teaching, creating and sharing about as well as work from others that I believe to be of value for fellow creatives is to subscribe to my weekly email newsletter.
I sent three Email Newsletters in December and also posted 33 times to Instagram (every single day thanks to #dancedailydecember). It is my honor to be connected to you there, here, on social media, online and in-person!
Creative Challenges
Dance Daily December was a new creative challenge that I created for the month, while other artists worked on Create December, Vlogmas, Inkvent, and other wintery projects.
This in addition to writing in my journals, playing with my new fountain pens, publishing articles, creating improvisations and choreography, video filming and editing.
Dance Daily December
Dance Daily December was 31 days of mindful movement to change your life, but you can start your daily dance challenge anytime!
Back in November I declared that right now we need to feel good and move for change more than ever, therefore I took on a personal challenge to dance every day in December and invited others to join in, too!
Daily dances that I shared on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook:
Day 1 Tango practice with Ela in the kitchen
Day 2 Playing before teaching ballet at Tanzraum
Day 3 Embrace, Release, Glow prompts from #createdecember on my yoga mat in the living room
Day 4 Soutenu spin around the kitchen
Day 5 Fall Leaf Prop Improv at Tanzraum
Day 6 Live at Eigelstein Weihnachtsmarkt schaukeln (sp?) with a band
Day 7 Dream, Notice, Understand #createdecember After Saturday chores, interpretive dance on the stairs…
Day 8 Ohne das Stauen band at Atelier Zoozmann @artverwandt
Day 9 One hand at home
Day 10 Swirling like a snowflake at Tanzraum
Day 11 Upper-Body Snow at home
Day 12 Sugarplum fairy fun at Tanzraum
Day 13 Found freezing temperatures in Cologne and me snuggling in the flannel of my bed/office/studio…Comfort, Rest, Indulge #createdecember
Day 14 Stairway study
Day 15 Santa’s coming!
Day 16 Getting mean with the Grinch at Tanzraum
Day 17 Yoga dancing at home
Day 18 Ballet grand battements giving me fever in the kitchen dance studio
Day 19 Passes to rock around the Christmas tree on my last day of in-studio classes of the year!
Day 20 Friday night foam roller fun in the living room
Day 21 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy party
Day 22 Cozy day at my house
Day 23 Taking a little Mirliton promenade on Christmas Eve eve
Day 24 Merry Jingle Bells at the train station Christmas Eve
Day 25 Feliz Navidad! Sliding into Christmas in front of Petra’s tree
Day 26 Ho ho ho on the second day of Christmas at Reiner’s library
Day 27 Back on the foam roller leg beats in the air to “The Muppet Show”
Day 28 Glittery Christmas present improv with my new magic wand (Benu fountain pen)
Day 29 What are you doing New Year’s Eve? at the doorway
Day 30 New Year’s Eve Eve back at my house
Day 31 Celebrating New Year’s with sparklers and fireworks
Twenty-Four 24s in 2024
In December, I wrote my 24th Poem “acorn” or fragment and sent my 24th piece of correspondence, concluding the year with 17 of my “24s” complete.
Inspired by Jess/JashiiCorrin on YouTube), this creative challenge is a playful way to track various leading metrics, projects and activities I wish to keep an eye on.
Having found such a structure useful this year and in 2023, for 2025 I am reducing the number of categories tracked to 20, and raise the actions by one for a catchy “Twenty 25s in 2025.”
Media Musings
My December in reading, listening, and viewing pleasures:
Art & Culture
Instead of a traditional holiday party this year, @artverwandte hosted a 2-band live music concert at Atelier Zoozman and it really rocked!
A tiny excerpt can be heard in Dance Daily December Day 8: Ohne das Stauen band. Food, drink, music, art, and wonderful people made a splendid addition to this time of many fests.
Books & Reading
Books Read
Still reading along on my nonfiction picks (poetry, scripture, self-help), and I completed one novel in December:
- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley: “To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder.” Having read a later book in the series first by accident, glad to go back to the beginning to read the rest of this fun precocious pre-teen whodunnit series in order.
Poetry Read
- The new anthology I started that will take me through 2025, 365 Poems for Life: An Uplifting Collection for Every Day of the Year compiled by Allie Esiri immediately touched and inspired me such that I filmed the Poetic Inspiration from _365 Poems for Life_ “The Day is Done” by Longfellow video.
- Winter poems
Listening Highlights
Favorite things heard over the course of the month go here, such as concerts, songs, pieces of music, playlists, podcasts and more.
Music: Songs & Albums
My Silver Bells Winter Warmers playlist on YouTube inspired movement classes, and I also listened to a few favorite albums:
- Cazimero Christmas Favorites and
- A Christmas Together by John Denver and The Muppets
It was time to update and enjoy my Harvest & Thanksgiving Songs Playlist on YouTube, including tracks such as:
- “Ho ho ho” by Sia
- Hayley Sales shared “Present Enough for Me” and I dug the tracks she released as a sort of Advent Calendar over the course of the month, also “What are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
Viewing Highlights
Films
Movies watched last month:
- “But I’m a Cheerleader” with the incredibly talented Natasha Leone and others, which I originally saw when it came out in 1999, is a comedy about gay conversion camps and unfortunately still relevant, good to be the ones to show it to a friend for the first time
- “Inside Out 2” was a cute follow up to the animated original, going through the throes of puberty
Series
Series streamed in December:
- Finished “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 on Disney+
- The new “The Wonder Years” series is also cute
Videos
- Post:ballet’s “Waltz of the Snowflakes” is one of my favorites, shot outdoors during pandemic
- “A Christmas Together” John Denver & The Muppets Special: the album has long been a holiday staple of mine, but this is the first time I’ve see the whole show
Questions for Reflection
- What do you want to remember from December/the past month, quarter, and year?
- Which books, musical selections, and viewing do you currently recommend?
- Where will you shine your light in the New Year?
- What are your favorite winter treats?
Resources for Further Exploration
- Quantum Leaping into 2024 Word of the Year Article
- Twenty-Four 24s in 2024 Article
- To-Enjoy List for Quarter 4 2024 Article
- Say the Magic Words Article
- Analog Journals for Creativity Article
My final reflections on 2024, 2025 Word of the Year, Twenty 25s, explorations in dance, coaching and more coming soon.
Thank you for reading, for being, and for dancing with me, in spirit or in fact!
Take care of yourself and keep moving mindfully, let me know how if I can be of service, would love to see you in my email newsletter or on social media as well.
Blythe Stephens, MFA & Bliss Catalyst
she/her or they/them
Creator of A Blythe Coach @ablythecoach
helping multi-passionate creatives dance through their difficulties,
taking leaps of faith into fulfillment through coaching, yoga & dance education