Every winter, while the rest of the world sprints to the finish line, we do something that makes other business owners look at me like I’ve lost it.

We close. Fully. The whole agency. For two weeks.

No inbox.
No Slack.
No quick requests.

I used to think that kind of pause was irresponsible as a small business owner. Now I know it’s the reason we’re still here, still growing, and still creating work I’m genuinely proud of.

Because here’s the thing: you cannot run a creative business on fumes. Our brains are the work. And when they’re fried, everything suffers — the ideas, the execution, the communication, the joy. Especially the joy.

Those two quiet weeks each December do something no strategy call or team meeting could ever do. They bring us back to ourselves. They reconnect us to why we started this in the first place. To build something sustainable, something rooted in family, creativity, intention, and actual life… not burnout masquerading as productivity.

What surprised me most is how much our clients love it. They’d rather have a rested team who shows up sharp in January than a tired team limping across the finish line in December. And honestly, so would I.

Stepping away every year forced us to build cleaner systems, communicate better, plan ahead, and operate like a business with boundaries… not a business reacting to everything in real time. It made us more profitable, more stable, more confident. It made the work better. It made us better.

But more than anything, it gave my team permission to be full humans. Moms, partners, daughters, friends, not just employees attached to notifications. And when people feel taken care of, they show up with a different kind of energy. A different kind of ownership. A different kind of fire.

Every January, we come back clearer, calmer, and more creative than when we left. Ideas pour out. Solutions appear. The vision sharpens. The excitement returns.

That reset has become one of the most important things we do all year.

Not because we’re slowing down.
But because resting is how we speed up.

And honestly? I’ll never run my business any other way.