I have a confession to make: I have spent every one of the past nineteen Christmases at home in Ohio. Sure, I've celebrated New Years out-of-town for something like the past four, since Christmas break became the best time to travel when my older brother started college. But Christmas? Never. This year, however, with my brother recently having graduated from college and starting work at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, my family and I are going to be in Florida for Christmas.

At first, I was a little nervous about being away for one of the biggest family holidays of the year. I have grown accustomed to being in Ohio for Christmas and, as silly as it might sound, I'm a little sentimental of all the cold and snow. Since we knew we were going away this year, we didn't decorate the tree as elaborately as we usually do, a tradition my family and I have had for basically my whole life. I still made and decorated Christmas cookies with my two childhood friends while I was at home leading up to the holiday. The cookie baking was definitely a great tradition to keep in place this year, especially since the traditions that my family and I usually have are changing quite a bit.

Our Thanksgiving celebration also strayed from tradition this year. We usually spend it with my aunt, uncle and two younger cousins in Centerville, Ohio. However, in the past year, my aunt and uncle have moved to South Carolina, meaning that my family and I had to celebrate Thanksgiving elsewhere. We spent Thanksgiving with my grandma this year and, while the celebration itself was great, it was a little weird to change our longstanding tradition. Thanksgiving was usually the one time every year that my brother and I would get to hang out with our younger cousins and, with my brother in Florida at the time and my cousins in South Carolina, my parents and I had to change our tradition. My mom and I still went Black Friday shopping that night, however, so some traditions still held among the change.

As Christmas grew closer and closer, I became more and more excited about going away for Christmas. Now that we're here, I'm really glad we decided to travel for the holidays. As much as I love it when there is a white Christmas in Ohio, I know I'm going to see plenty of snow in about three weeks when classes start back up (and, trust me, I won't love it then). I'm just glad that we get to spend Christmas together, as a family. I've learned this year, with my family's many changes to holiday traditions, that it's okay to change and start new traditions, but what's important is that you spend the holidays with people that you care about. And Christmas on the beach with my family sounds pretty great to me.