There is a moment every December when I look at my calendar and realize that the holidays are essentially a triathlon made of tinsel and small talk. First, there is the driving portion, which involves circling unfamiliar neighborhoods, Googling parking rules, and eventually abandoning the car somewhere that feels both illegal and inevitable. Then comes the chat endurance test, during which you must remember who got divorced, who got a dog, and who now runs a kombucha company. Plus, be visibly interested in the updates.

All of this is meant to be festive. And it is, sort of. But it can also feel like we are leaping through a gauntlet of social obligations while wearing one of those sparkly jumpsuits that look fabulous until you need to pee. Holidays carry the weight of repetition. Every year, the same gatherings, the same stilted conversations, the same negotiations with your own seasonal cheer. You go because you love people, but also because you *should. *

When what you really want is to be home in bed with your dog.

A Word That Changes the Room

This year, though, I learned a word that shifted my attitude a bit. It came from my podcast Fifty Words for Snow, where my cohost Emily John Garcés and I explore words from other languages that do not have a direct English equivalent. In a recent episode, we invited English teacher Luc Lewitanski, cohost with Ralph Levinson of the podcast Your Planet, Your Health, to talk to us about the French word retrouvailles.

Literally, retrouvailles means to refind someone. But as Luc explained, the emotional meaning is richer. “It is a word to describe meeting up with a group of friends you have not seen in a long time,” he told us. “The fondness of finding your friends again, of refinding them.” He compared it to the moment at an airport when two people scan the crowd for each other, and when they finally meet, there is a rush of familiarity and newness at once, a blend of relief, recognition, and surprise.

Reunion vs. Refinding

This is what makes retrouvailles different from reunion. Reunion is an event. Retrouvailles is an experience. Reunion is the date on the invitation. Retrouvailles is the feeling in your chest when someone you once knew walks toward you, and you realize you are meeting the person they were and the person they have become at the same time.

That image stayed with me. It made me think about how often we greet people as if they have stayed frozen in time. We project their past selves onto them, sometimes because it is convenient, sometimes because it is comforting. But to refind someone is to update that picture. It is to say, I see who you were, and I am open to who you are now. It is curiosity instead of assumption. It is attention instead of autopilot.

Which, if there is ever a season when autopilot takes over, it is the holidays.

Everyone Is a New Edition

I know I often walk into December gatherings with a blend of nostalgia and low-grade dread. But what if I approached each of these encounters not as repetitions, but as refindings?

The holidays, after all, scatter us. A year passes, or several. People change jobs, cities, relationships, hairstyles, philosophies. They surprise themselves. They survive things. They discover new talents. They fail at things they once felt certain about. They fall in love. They fall apart. They grow.

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When you see someone after time has passed, you are encountering a new edition of them. And they are encountering a new edition of you.

Retrouvailles gives us a way to honor that. It invites us to arrive with a little more tenderness and a lot more curiosity. It reframes each gathering not as “Here we go again,” but as “Who will I refind tonight?” Who has shifted? Who has softened? Who has become more themselves?

This subtle shift matters. Curiosity brings us into the present. Assumption traps us in the past.

This holiday season, I am trying to bring retrouvailles into the room with me. The same parties still exist. The same obligations. The same bottle of wine I forgot I bought and bought again. But now, instead of rehearsing small talk in the car, I find myself wondering who is waiting inside and who they have become.