Have yourself a merry, little Christmas! My latest art work

December 24, 2025 JessicaGimeno

Colored pencil drawing of red, pink, orange flowers by Jessica Gimeno of Fashionably ill ®

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas! And a (belated) Happy Chanukah to my Jewish friends; I wanted to make this blog post earlier but my ear infections and migraines were not cooperating. In years past, I have shared my paintings for Christmas. This year, however, I was not able to make any paintings due to my hectic schedule with weekly doctors appointments, my full time job and graduate school. So, I recently started learning how to use colored pencils because art is one of my mental health coping mechanisms (as I explained in this video). Unfortunately, painting is a time consuming activity. Fortunately, colored pencils are less high maintenance. This image of red, pink, and orange flowers is my second colored pencil drawing ever.

I know the holidays can be difficult for a myriad of reasons and they’re not always “merry.” Sometimes it’s the loneliest time of the year. In that spirit, I’m sharing some of my videos and articles from the past:

“Holidays and Grief.” In this YouTube video (also see below), I share some ideas I learned from attending my LOSS support group for navigating the holidays when you are grieving. HERE is a link to the worksheet I discussed in the video.
“3 Tips on Surviving the Holidays from Chronic Christmas author, Lene Andersen” – I had the privilege of interviewing Lene who lives with juvenile arthritis, migraines, and fibromyalgia
“5 Tips for Celebrating a Holiday Alone” – whether you are immunocompromised (like me) or have toxic family or no disability accessible gatherings to attend or something else, I wrote this article.

Click on the video above, “Holidays and Grief” to play it. Image shows woman with short dark hair, big black eyes and purple shirt that says ‘Northwestern” in white letters staring at the camera.”

I have some good news to share: I just finished my final finals last week. (I finished University of California Berkeley’s Certificate of Clinical Counseling and Psychology program.) So, (God wiling) have more time to update this blog and resume filming videos for my YouTube channel in 2026. I will incorporate some of the things I learned the past three years in school into my content. In the mean time, please take care of yourselves.

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