Christmas is a strange time of year for a lot of people.

It’s a time that has a massive build up – buying & wrapping gifts, making plans, preparing meals, catching flights or driving home, counting down the days until the holiday break begins. Jesus Christ tends to be forgotten in favour of the commercial side of Christmas and how most people have come to celebrate Christmas in modern years.

I didn’t grow up religious at all. My parents christened my brother and I, and they got married in the local Anglican church, but we were never regular church goers. We never went to a service on Sunday or read The Bible. We never said grace before a meal, or spoke of God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, or any other biblical concepts or figures.

Instead, we grew up with concepts of angels, fairies, astrology, creativity, witchcraft, morals, and just living in reality and living a beautiful life, but we were lacking belief systems.

Several years later in my early twenties, I started becoming more involved with angels, psychics, and everything new age. It was a natural affinity that took centre stage for a number of years, but in 2016 I started to become a bit lost and was looking for more. It felt like my tarot & oracle cards weren’t giving me the depth of connection with the divine that I was needing in my soul. I needed community and I just needed more.

At the end of 2016 at a photography exhibition, I met a lovely girl who mentioned she was a Christian. She invited me to Church and I ended up going for a couple of months in early 2017. Although I met a couple of lovely people, I met someone who was very judgemental towards me which put me off.

Something I really don’t like is being judged. 

We all make judgements, it’s a part of being human. But when someone attacks me I struggle to overcome it. I know it is a weakness in myself that I need to work on, however at this time when I was putting myself into something new and attempting to learn their world, I struggled with the lack of reciprocation and my open-minded and open-hearted efforts being met with judgement. I felt like I didn’t belong. I wasn’t spiritual enough and I wasn’t enough of a believer to fit in with anyone. Honestly, this girl wasn’t that bad. She didn’t say anything awful, she was just very clear and strong with her point of view which heavily conflicted with mine. She is a good-hearted person, but we clashed. Unfortunately this happens sometimes, even when both people are good. I also found some of the other girls had a bitchy high school attitude which bothered me.

As a result of these clashes, I stopped attending church and just decided to focus on real life for a while which was good. I moved out and got my Provisional License in those 6 months. It was a necessary progression in my life as a 24-25 year old. However at the start of 2018 I felt called to go back to the same church and go again. Things had changed a bit in the year I’d been gone – a lot of the people I had met had moved onto another church, and a lot of new faces were at the Sunday 6pm service. I felt a lot more comfortable attending and went most weeks. I became more comfortable with saying God or Jesus, and religious terminology seemed to become more integrated into my vocabulary. I prayed regularly (and he answered even small prayers like asking for a parking spot at a busy location immediately) and built a connection with God for the first time which has changed a lot of things for me.

On Christmas Day this year, my family and I spent the morning opening presents, watching Christmas episodes of Will & Grace, and playing MarioKart. There was no mention of Jesus or what this day means for believers, apart from a small gift in my stocking. It was a necklace from Sister & Soul which had a rose quartz crystal cross, a crown, and a hope tag on it.

A couple of months ago I felt like I needed a cross necklace. I researched lots of them but never found the right one, so I asked Jesus to guide me to the right one, or have someone give it to me as a gift. No one else knew I wanted it, so I was so shocked when I saw this necklace from my mum; I swear she is partly psychic because she just seems to know things. The fact that the cross is made of crystal makes me feel like I am accepted as I am, and I don’t need to abandon my new age beliefs in order to fit in with the Christians at church. It also has additional significance to be because I have a tattoo on my left wrist that says HOPE.

I’ve learned this year that we are God’s perfectly flawed creations. Jesus came to earth to walk amongst us and guide us to be more heavenly on earth, and died for us. We are already loved, and we are already forgiven for our sins, our mistakes, and our flaws. That is what I’ve learned this year, and am grateful for this Christmas.

As you may know in November I went to Tangalooma Island! It’s only a two hour journey from where I live which made it the perfect island getaway for a couple of days. The only cameras I took were a Fujifilm disposable camera and my Instax Wide 300. I used up all the pictures on the disposable camera and was really happy with how they turned out.

Since I posted a couple of pictures on Instagram the other day quite a few people have asked me what filter I used – I used absolutely no filters and didn’t edit the photos at all. They turned out wonderfully because they were taken on film and film does all of the editing for you. Disposable cameras really are the perfect thing to take on holiday with you – I highly recommend it for your next trip.

View more from the Disposable Diary series here.

Having disposable cameras at parties is one of the best things you can do. It’s super fun and everyone looks awful in photos – what isn’t to like? No matter how great or terrible we look, you can’t deny that the photos are natural and that they capture the moment.

All photos were taken on Fujifilm ISO 400 disposable cameras.

View more from the Disposable Diary series here.

On Saturday night I hosted a Christmas party with my high school friends.

It was so good to catch up with everyone in person as it’s been over a year since this group got together. I absolutely love hosting. Getting to create an atmosphere that will make for the most joyous and enjoyable experience for everyone at the event is really satisfying and fun for me.

As most of you know, these days it can be hard to truly connect with people on a human level. I often say that we are turning into robots – constantly relying on our phones, computers and self serve checkouts at the grocery store. It seems like basic human connection is not enough and we need to constantly be connected to the world at the same time, but this night proved me wrong. People still want human connection and friendships. We still want to laugh around the dinner table while taking pictures wearing silly glasses and hats. We want to create genuine memories and have honest conversations about life.  It’s a shame that this group doesn’t come together more often. I’m going to try to change that next year.

All photos were taken with either the Fujifilm Instax Wide 300, or the Lomo’Instant Wide. The Lomo’Instant Wide was perfect for this event thanks to the remote/self timer.