Real Christmas Letter 23
One of my favorite traditions for over a decade has been to sit down and try to write a REAL Christmas letter. Not just the highlights, but a few honest moments as well. It started as a joke with one of my friends, thinking how refreshing it would be for people to share more than just their perfect lives that we are used to seeing on Facebook and Instagram. It would be way more truthful and a whole lot more entertaining. So here goes…
2023. December has felt like an entire year all by itself. Some days impossibly hard, some joyful, but even with one less kid at home – still somehow incredibly jam packed. If it were not for this practice I’d have a hard time remembering all the things that 2023 brought – and it certainly didn’t hold back.
We made our usual summer rounds: mountains and beaches. The first few days of summer we spent in a mountain home in New Mexico. Per usual, Owen fly-fished. I hiked and landed a side gig via Zoom and Tess entertained her younger cousins and got some early driving practice in. We made a quick trip to the Rio Grande Gorge and I had no idea that a giant hole in the Earth could be so incredibly beautiful (and terrifying). Later in the summer we went to Galveston where my kids did their usual beach things, crabbed, played games and body surfed. The guys went deep sea fishing and kept us in delicious redfish. In many ways those vacations felt like a repeat of the previous year, even if we were in slightly different spaces. Maybe that is the whole point. So much was changing – it was Owen’s last summer before going off to college and Tess entering high school. I can’t predict what the next few years will look like but I know what to expect and look forward to each summer. I know I’ll lose all my quarters at card games and eat the best muffaletta in Texas (Maceo Spice) each summer. In addition to the normal family vacays - we finally got to go on our San Francisco trip over Spring Break. Highs - Bread bowls and Muir Woods - (it smelled like Christmas and Ewoks). Lows - Canceled flights home and much colder weather and rain (and crime) than we had hoped for. We still ate our way through Fog City and I almost made it across the Golden Gate bridge. (heights are not my friend).
Both kids had some major transitions. Both started the year as freshmen (college and high school respectively) at new schools with new people. Owen graduated and turned 18. He is kind, smart and funny (although a good bit of that funny is highly inappropriate and not living at home has stripped him of what little filter he had). Spring semester was just one last moment after another. I’d have spent the semester in tears, if I wasn’t so busy going to events and writing checks. Owen did not play tennis his senior year and I insisted he get a job and join something. His something was Acadec and Science UIL. The year before he competed on whim and earned a place to Regionals for his Biology score. This year – I warned him that his school was bumped up to 6A and to expect much harder competition. Clearly he heard this as a challenge and took first in Science overall and a few other medals. It is hard to imagine that one of my kids is an actual adult who can vote, go to R-rated movies and that I no longer have any rights to his medical information (other than of course providing the insurance and paying the bills). When he moved into his dorm he brought a fishing pole, but forgot to pack his computer. So, yep. College Owen is not that different than 7th-grade Owen. He has come home a few times some this semester but never seems in a hurry to do so. I keep asking him if he wants to bring laundry and he has yet to bring any home. He either has mastered the laundry mat or he is wearing really dirty clothes. Jury is still out. He has a whole routine – mostly centered around his favorite dining halls. I think he was a little lonely at first, but now he says his dorm has become the hangout room. When he does come home he talks and talks about his classes and is full of crazy dorm drama. He mostly answers when I facetime. I’ve offered him a dollar for every selfie he sends me – so far in over four months - I have gotten a grand total of 3 (one of which was of a fish). I know he is learning a lot. Like thermochemistry, how to navigate roommates and how to change your car battery. In typical Owen fashion - he aced the hard classes like Calculus and Chemistry, but did not receive credit for the mandatory freshmen study skills seminar (thankfully that also does not factor into his GPA). The irony is still not lost on me.
Like Owen, Tess has also changed schools. She left her small STEM campus to go to the traditional high school she is zoned for. She went from knowing everyone and having a ton of flexibility to trying to navigate a giant campus with mostly all new people. She is taking her time finding her place, but is holding her own (even in a few upper level classes). Her grades are always perfect and she gets mad when I try to remind her of anything. (“Mom. I’ve got it”). For the first time she has occasionally asked me for help on some homework – but abruptly stopped when I caused her to get an answer wrong. She has had to take a pause on barrel racing (her teacher took some time off) but filled every free minute with soccer. In the Spring she surprised us and ran track. She wasn’t the fastest (or anywhere close) but she always finished strong. She hated track because it was new and she wasn’t naturally good at it. I loved it because each week I got to sit through six laps of her being brave. As for soccer, she is still pulling jerseys and slide tackling, but has gotten much more subtle and avoided yellow cards. She’s lost some heartbreaking games, but also scored the first JV goal of her high school team’s season. I had forgotten how cold high school soccer season can be. Shaun and I have invested in lava buns and wearable sleeping bags. We embarrass her, but I figure that is part of the job. Her own style has changed to more sporty with cropped shirts and slightly less black. She’s out of dress code on the daily and lately has tried to convince me that the last five days straight were ALL pajama days. (They were not but I’d also like to wear pajamas every day in December too and if I eat any more cookies -they might be the only pants that fit). She’s continued to mellow (a smidge) and we have found a few things to share - like soup dumplings, boba and has finally hit the age where she doesn’t hate ALL my music. Every once in a while we will pull into our neighborhood and she will tell me to drive around the block a few times. My forty-five-year-old and seventeen-year-old self always obliges, trying to hide a grin before she sees it and forces me to go home. In addition to all the soccer - her hobbies include asking to go to Target a minimum of six times a week, intermittent napping and thrift shopping.
Owen moving out and Tess getting her permit have been some major adjustments in our house. First, our grocery bill has dropped a little now that we can buy all the gluten. But I still sleep better when he is home “visiting”. Tess has quickly taken over the entire upstairs for herself. Getting her permit took me three tries and every important document I own. Thankfully, Shaun handles most of the actual driving practice because, although Tess is ok at it, it makes me want to breathe into a paper bag. Tess, also feels like she now has the authority to critique all my driving and parking jobs. She isn’t always wrong, but it has certainly cut down on my willingness to take her on a Target run.
Shaun is still running the lab and possibly hates leadership even more than he did a year ago. Even if he despises a million meetings, hard decisions and carefully worded emails, he is still a caring and compassionate boss. Last night I came home to his whole lab around my dining room table, voluntarily, on a weeknight. I’ve also noticed that when things go wrong – neighbors we barely know knock on our door. This has happened more than once with multiple neighbors. They may not even know his name, but they spy him working in his garage and see him as kind, helpful, calm and handy. I’m not the only one that looks to him in a crisis. We may never win yard of the month, but more than one neighbor owes him for saving the day.
This time last year things were just starting to really feel normal. And well, if normal is too many dots on my calendar then we are back full force. Sadly, the overcommitted schedule is one thing that Covid really should have taken down. This fall I taught an education class at TCU. It was a bigger time commitment than I anticipated, but it was rewarding and fun. I work with some amazing educators every day, but many of them are tired after the last several years. Politics, policies and unfunded mandates have made this job harder and harder for me, but especially for my friends still in a classroom. Getting the chance to spend time with young, excited and caring future educators energized me each week. They gave me renewed confidence and hope in the future (and slightly less wondering of exactly how many years from now I’ll be TRS eligible). On my non-teaching or soccer nights, I’m often volunteering with youth at church or leading/serving with National Charity League. One gives me great joy and the other gives me a way to serve and connect with my community. I do miss my couch and haven’t watched much TV since Ted Lasso ended….but I wouldn’t trade it for anything (except maybe a nap).
The last few years I’ve also given a writing update here. This year, I’ve had less time to commit to writing but am still moving forward. I’m still publishing from time to time and am spending a few days this January at a book proposal intensive. I’m still cranking out a monthly-ish newsletter –and signing up for my email list is an easy way to support my writing (shameless plug – sign up here). My writing is getting better, but I struggle with building a platform and editing. I’m still using words to do my heavy lifting (feel my feelings). My goal is to have a solid draft of a book by the end of January, but then the big hurdle is trying to figure what to do with it after that. Sometimes doing the work isn’t nearly as scary as letting people see it. In many ways writing is a Masterclass in rejection. However, it is also where I feel most like myself.
Sometime this summer a handful of my friends got serious about the idea of a camp reunion that we have been talking about for decades. This was the year we made it happen. We expected a dozen or two friends, but instead it grew well beyond a few dozen with people flying in from literally all over the globe. This represented a formative space and place in my life. Going back was a little scary, but I don't know a single person that walked away from our weekend unmoved or unmoored. It was magic. We all returned home somehow feeling more like ourselves -both who we used to be and who we have always hoped to be more of. We realized only too quickly how much that weekend had mattered.
A few weeks later, we lost one and she had been mine.
It has been a loss that I’m still navigating. The grief has eased a bit, now instead of a constant cloud it is more like an occasional punch in the gut. I’ve learned a few things, mostly that you can feel so many things at once. I can laugh at a party until I almost wet my pants and then find myself in tears on the way home. I can be angry and still full of love. I can be hopeful and still feel an ache. More than ever this Advent season I have been paying attention to all the moments of joy. They feel harder fought and somehow brighter for it. I had no idea how intense grief could be, but I also didn’t expect it to expand my hope and joy. The contrast has somehow made it easier to spot and hold on tight when I do.
They are building a giant Floor & Decor store near my house. Each day for months I have driven past and given the unsightly big box store construction my side eye. This week, however, a giant larger than life size red ampersand went up. Every day I drive past and am reminded not of flooring but of all the ANDs in my life this year. My years are always full of highs & lows. Shining moments & low ones. Milestones - like graduations and learners permits. Sacred spaces on hilltops & brutal ones on hard wooden pews and hospital rooms. 2023 has given me both in extremes. grief & joy. conflict & peace. loss & hope. love & love & love. Here is to a new year full of ands.
Christmases past (they go back further than this….but this is as far as I was willing to curate)
2022 letter evergreen my favorite reads
2021 letter and so it goes
2020 letter wish i had a river
2019 letter gingerbread
2018 letter christmas lights