Packing Kindness this Holiday Season

There’s something about landing in Puerto Vallarta that feels a bit like exhaling.

Maybe it’s the way the mountains lean in as though they’ve been waiting for you, or the soft hush of the waves tumbling onto the sand with that reliable, familiar rhythm. Maybe it’s the air, dense with salt, sunlight, and just a hint of possibility. It’s the reason so many people return year after year. This sense that life, for a while, can be softer.

And perhaps that’s why this reminder matters so much this season.

Puerto Vallarta has had a year. It’s been one full of storms that didn’t just rattle windows but rattled routines, roads, and lives. The rainy season brought runoff that didn’t ask for permission before pouring down hillsides and into homes. Locals have been busy repairing, cleaning, rebuilding, and reimagining the shape of their days. And like anyone who’s been through a hard stretch, they deserve a gentler season ahead.

Enter us. Visitors. Tourists. Snowbirds. Sunseekers. Relocaters. The ones who touch down ready for margaritas and memories. We come here for the beauty, and the city gives generously, but that beauty is held up by the people who call this place home. And when you’re a guest in someone else’s home, it’s good to remember the quiet rules of gracious visiting. You wipe your feet. You say please and thank you. You let the little things be little things.

The world beyond holiday lights and ocean breezes has been running a little hot lately. All it takes is a scroll on social media, well, more like the tiniest swipe, to fall headfirst into a rapid churn of snark, shouting, and blame. Anger has become contagious, and outrage is effortless. Complaints practically auto-populate.

Maybe the greatest gift we can give this season is deciding not to pack all that with us.

Because Puerto Vallarta will present its own quirks, as it always does.

The salsa is going to be spicy enough to make you question whether your taste buds will ever fully trust you again. The language barrier will flex its comedic muscles. Like when I saw a FB discussion recently about the ins and outs of holiday bonuses, but people were encouraged to pay holiday “watermelons” instead. Or the far too often awkwardly heard mispronunciation of “Feliz año nuevo.”

Traffic will do that thing traffic does, crawling along at a pace that suggests even the cars are admiring the view. Life will foible, as life tends to do, no matter how carefully we plan for it not to.

But amid all that, there’s the chance to practice a kind of slow, deliberate kindness. The type that grows in warm places.

Picture yourself arriving at a busy restaurant where the host is juggling a small galaxy of tables, reservations, and walk-ins. They’re smiling, but it’s the smile of someone mentally shifting between ten tasks. A soft “no worries, we’re happy to wait” can feel like a small blessing. You may not realize what it means in the moment, but they will.

Or imagine the taxi driver who’s been on the road since sunrise, navigating potholes that weren’t there last season and detours that popped up overnight. A simple “thank you,” said like you truly mean it, carries more weight than you think.

The barista at your favorite café, who remembers your order even though she’s served what feels like half the city already today. The street vendor smiling through a long, hot afternoon. The server apologizing for a delay that wasn’t their fault. These are people who keep the city’s heartbeat steady. And right now, after the storms and the rebuilding and the months of unpredictability, your kindness becomes part of that rhythm too.

There’s a quiet calm to traveling with gentleness. It turns small mishaps into stories instead of stress. It turns misunderstandings into moments of connection. It makes room for humour. The kind that reminds you life is endlessly surprising and often hilariously imperfect.

The truth is, Puerto Vallarta doesn’t ask much of us. Just that we show up with an open heart. That we understand the privilege of being welcomed into a place so warm, so vibrant, so alive. That we treat the locals not as background characters in our vacation but as the people whose home we’re borrowing for a while.

Think of the holiday season itself and how it always tries to nudge us toward our softer sides. The twinkling lights, the familiar music, the shared tables, the rituals that remind us of how much we need one another. Peace, joy, and goodwill aren’t decorations, they’re invitations.

So what if, this year, we accepted them fully?

What if we resisted the urge to grumble about the line at the grocery store and instead admired the colorful mess of it? What if we turned heavy traffic into an opportunity to notice the shimmer of the bay? What if we forgave the little imperfections of weather, timing, menus, or misunderstandings because the bigger picture is so undeniably beautiful?

And what if we carried that softness into January? And February? And maybe even through next year’s storm season, when the rains inevitably return but so does the resilience of the people who live here.

Kindness isn’t a grand gesture. It’s a series of small, everyday decisions. To breathe instead of bark. To smile instead of sigh. To listen before reacting. To remember, always, that the person standing across from us also has a life full of storms and sunshine, heartbreaks and hopes.

The holidays in Puerto Vallarta glow with something special. The sunsets stretch longer, as though encouraging everyone to slow down. The Malecón fills with music that spills into your bones. The ocean stays warm and patient. The city feels like it’s wrapped in its own kind of shimmering embrace.

This season, let yourself be fully part of that glow.

Be the traveler who leaves a trail of warmth behind them. The one who notices and says thank you in any language they can manage. The one who accepts that imperfections are part of the journey and that a little laughter goes a long way. The one who remembers they’re stepping into someone’s home, and treats it with the tenderness that deserves.

Because when kindness is the souvenir you choose to carry, everything else seems lighter. And who knows? Maybe that gentleness will make the return trip home with you, settling into your life the way the Vallarta sun settles into the horizon. Bright, warm, steady, and determined to be seen.

This year, let’s give Puerto Vallarta, and each other, the softness the world has been forgetting. Tis the season for joy and for peace. So, let’s suspend the snark, unplug the outrage, and let gratitude have the front seat for once.

Let’s taste the salsa, embrace the foibles, laugh at the miscommunications, and step into the season with hearts wide open.

Let this be the time we let kindness set our pace. Let it guide how we wander the cobblestones, how we greet the sunrise over the bay, and how we speak to the people who knit this place together with their work and their warmth.

And when the sun slips into the ocean at day’s end, may we find ourselves softened by it all. Lighter, brighter, and grateful for the reminder that gentleness is a kind of magic that can stick around, clinging to us like the sand between our toes, no matter how hard we try to shake it off.