Christmas Letter 2024
Merry Christmas!
In great expectation, I entered 2024 with a series of goals, dreams, and hopes for the future.
My fourth year in Boston, I continued to explore. I visited the Water Works Museum, Isabella Stewart Garner Museum, Institute of Contemporary Arts, the New England Aquarium, F1 Arcade, Puttshack, Law & Order Pop up, Mapparium, and attended the Chinese New Year, Black History experiences at the Museum of Fine Arts. I ate unlimited ice cream at the Jimmy Fund fundraiser, attended a MIT lecture on China, met Ben & Jerry (from the icecream brand), and increased my wine knowledge through a series of tastings. I also attended two performances hosted by the Boston Symphony, an outdoor gospel concert in the Seaport, saw “The Thorn” at the Wang Theater and “The Urban Nutcracker” at the Shubert Theater.
I continued to try new restaurants, desserts and have established a few as my “go-to’s” including an up-scale pastry shop on Newbury, a Brooklyn-based ice cream shop, tacos, a soul-food spot in Cambridge, BBQ and of course, lobster rolls. I have been baking and cooking constantly. Some of my biggest kitchen wins were my Guinness short ribs, smothered chicken, and carrot cake cookies. Speaking of dessert, I made ice cream from scratch for the first time. I updated my blog website, yestodessert.com; by changing the sites’ interface and uploading new blog entries, and navigating Tik-Tok.
I’m glad to report, the food has not weighed my down. I’ve been hiking and doing outdoorsy activities under the guise of “millennial adventures”. Additionally, one of my goals this year was to run an official 5K. I went to the Run Show where I met 3X Olympic medalist and current Olympic coach Tonja Buford. I went classes at Lululemon and trained in all seasons. At 34:23, I met that goal, and had my medal signed by 4X Boston, 4X NYC marathon winner and Olympian, Bill Rogers. The race was not my only first of the year. I went on my first cruise to Bermuda, visited North Carolina for the first time, and attended my first Red Sox Game. Other travel experiences included day trips to New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and an impromptu overnight to Washington D.C., where I memorialized my late grandfather, visited the African American Museum and dined at Georgia Brown’s. And, of course, I spent some time in NYC (my forever home).
Though 2024 was certainty not without its challenges, I was so incrediblyblessed this year. And I’m grateful I had something to give. I volunteered At a Dorchester elementary school, the Boston Food Bank, made prints for Dana Farber Cancer Center for Children, specialty meal templates for St. Albans Veteran’s Home and worked as an election poll worker.
2024 was a reminder, multiple things can be true at once. You can be strong but hurting, rejected, but hopeful, faith-filled, though afraid, and tired, but persistent. Surly, it is because of the mercy of God, that I have not been consumed. His compassions fail not. In 2024 I have been gifted the “miracle of endurance”… Grateful for the survival of another year, I eagerly await the manifold blessings in 2025. For I believe, it will be worth the wait.
M A R I S S A
