This year, all I want for Christmas is good skincare—or at least, that’s the easy answer. When my husband asks me what I want for Christmas, I often freeze. The question feels loaded, as if my deepest, most carefully guarded secrets might spill out—like the truth about how much I really spend on skincare throughout the year. If he knew, he’d probably flip out. But good skin doesn’t come easy, and it certainly isn’t cheap. Not at my age.

I’m 59, and I take pride in how my skin looks. I know it, and people tell me often. I’ve taken care of it since my twenties, and I want to keep it that way. But these days, I find myself obsessing about it a little more than I’d like. Why does it matter so much to me? Why, as a woman, do I feel this deep need to look beautiful, as though beauty somehow defines my worth? Where does my value really come from?

The truth is, I’ve always valued looking good. But as I age, I struggle with the sense that I’m losing the beauty I’m still trying so hard to attain. It’s a paradox—like chasing something that slips further away even as you try to hold on. Is it just vanity, or is there something deeper? I tell myself it’s about staying healthy, and while there’s some truth to that, the bigger answer is tied to something more complicated: my feelings of self-worth.

Nothing is ever what it seems on the surface. I’ve spent my life asking “why?”—digging beneath appearances, searching for the hidden meaning in everything. And so, I ask myself this: Why do I feel that beauty gives me value as a human being? If I find the answer, will it change how I feel about myself? Will I still want to look beautiful?

And what is true beauty, anyway? Is it external or internal? Can you have one without the other?

Perhaps true beauty lies somewhere in the interplay between what we see and what we feel—between the physical and the intangible, the surface and the soul. And yet, this idea is easier to ponder than to embrace. In a world that often defines beauty in narrow, external terms, the question becomes deeply personal: how do we reconcile our desire to look beautiful with the need to feel beautiful on a deeper level? It’s a question that comes into sharp focus during moments of vulnerability—like when I’m asked what I want for Christmas, a question that often feels as much about what I desire as who I am.

This year, what I truly want for Christmas is peace. I want to quiet this constant questioning, to understand the deeper calling in my soul—the real reason it matters to me. And as that mystery unfolds, I want to give myself permission to look beautiful while I discover it. I want to embrace both the reflection in the mirror and the beauty of what lies beneath it. Because maybe true beauty isn’t an either-or. Maybe it’s both: the light we project on the outside and the light we nurture within.

So yes, I’ll take the skincare—and a little grace to go with it. After all, I’m 59, and I’m still learning how to be both strong and soft, how to age and still glow, and how to look beautiful and feel valuable. This Christmas, I’ll take the skincare and the grace, and I’ll remind myself to honor the beauty I already carry—inside and out.