We’ll admit it: we felt a tangible sense of relief when the holiday season finally ended. December is full of excitement, but it also brings stress—last-minute shopping, long-distance travel, family gatherings, and wild weather. That’s probably why a lot of people thought we were a little crazy for deciding to move into a new house during the holidays.

Looking back, it was a bit nuts. But Sherry and I realized this wasn’t the first time a big project landed right in the thick of the season. In fact, it’s been happening repeatedly for several years. Update: it kept happening the following years too. It seems we have a chronic tendency to complicate Christmas with construction, renovations, or moves.

At the end of 2007 we were finishing a major kitchen remodel. By Christmas we had already been living without a proper kitchen for two months. Our cabinets had been installed, but we were still waiting on countertops to finish the space and make it functional again. We were even washing dishes in our small bathroom vanity, which got old very quickly.

The following year, 2008, was dominated by floor refinishing. Right before leaving town for a family Christmas we crammed our belongings into the kitchen and den so the rest of the hardwood floors could be professionally refinished. The house was chaotic and uncomfortable; having your home disrupted during a holiday season is more than inconvenient—it’s stressful.

2009 brought a bathroom remodel that started the weekend after Thanksgiving. By New Year’s we were in the middle of tiling, and our only full bathroom was still a few weeks away from being usable. We improvised with gym showers and visits to my sister’s house, and once Sherry even hosed me down in the backyard after a particularly dusty day—she wouldn’t let me get in the car because she was worried I’d track dust everywhere. Needless to say, that era featured plenty of awkward workarounds.

This year’s mid-December move was another memorable adventure. We packed every last possession, loaded it into a U-Haul, and then—minutes after hitting the road—dealt with the truck slipping into a ditch. The logistics of unloading and unpacking while handling the fallout of that incident made the move even more stressful. Still, once we got settled, the chaos faded into memorable anecdotes and the satisfaction of a new home beginning to feel like ours.

In hindsight, each end-of-year project felt overwhelming at the moment but manageable in retrospect. The disruptions were temporary, and the results—new kitchen finishes, refinished floors, a remodeled bathroom, and finally settling into our new house—were worth the trouble. Over time, we’ve come to accept that major home projects and the holiday season seem to go hand in hand for us.

We’ve joked about how, in about eleven months, we’ll be curious to see what the end of next year brings. Maybe we’ll be in the midst of a simultaneous kitchen renovation, floor refinishing, and bathroom tiling—pure chaos, but also strangely fitting given our track record. For now, we’re focused on getting settled, enjoying a quieter start to the year, and planning our next projects with a bit more foresight.

Update: The pattern continued—another major kitchen renovation wrapped up just in time for Christmas in 2011, and the following year we found ourselves juggling a hectic book tour while hosting Christmas at our house for the first time. The tradition of tackling big projects around the holidays has proven oddly durable, but each episode has its own set of challenges and rewards that we remember fondly.