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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…
The last few weeks I’ve been asking groups of people what their favorite holiday traditions are. I’ve asked work friends, church teens and overcommitted adults. Most people mention food (tamales, sausage balls, cookies, special family recipes), time with family (looking at lights, decorating trees or gingerbread houses, playing games). I love novelty, new places and food and experiences, but something about December makes so many of us lean into the familiar. In the most joyful (and stressful) time of year we find ourselves wanting to eat the same foods, sing the same songs, watch the same movies and spend our free time with the same people. For one month, no one is counting calories or setting goals. We are eating all the cookies and grabbing another blanket on the couch. As I sat down to reflect and write this letter, I couldn’t find many things to “report” out on. On the surface so much of my life looks the exact same as it did this time last year. I have the same address, job title and A1C number (despite all my best efforts). Instead of feeling discouraged and stagnant, I’ve decided to snuggle in, to find comfort in the parts of my life that are steady and solid and the same. In my faith tradition, December is Advent. A season of waiting, or preparing where we wait for the same Christ to be born. Each year we celebrate the birth of Christ the same way each year. We sing the same songs and read the same story. I’ve always seen it like a birthday, another year, but I’m starting to see it as a place for my faith to be born anew. An opportunity in case I have forgotten or it has gotten lost in the shuffle or the sameness or been buried in grief - for faith to be born in my life again. And again. And again.
Last winter was a lot of very cold soccer games, with a daughter insistent that she was not playing for school next year. I did my best to host team dinners and do my time in the concession stand, cheer and not freeze despite her lack of commitment. I think she wasn’t used to occasionally sitting the bench but I did everything I could (read bribe) my kid to consider playing for school next year (instead of just her expensive club team), but she was insistent. At the start of Thanksgiving break, my husband came home from a club tournament and quietly told me that she is thinking of trying out but to not be too excited about it. Despite all my talks about grit and promises of all her favorite things, it only took a coach pulling her aside in the hallway and asking her to consider playing. It took teammates needling her for her to get a schedule change and show up. This has reminded me how incredibly cold and wet December soccer can be and that being wanted and included goes so much further than expensive shoes or cash. (I think that goes for people of all ages, not just ones in high school). Tess is playing JV, but hardly ever comes off the field. Shaun and I fight in the stands as to what constitutes “cheering” but…I’ll gladly freeze and of course the first team dinner is at our house.
I can barely remember the Spring. I looked back on social media and only found photos of the eclipse. As a science coordinator in a large district, an eclipse during the school day was as stressful as it was exciting. My coworker secured glasses for all the kids in our giant district and when the sky finally got dark and I heard hundreds of hard to impress teenagers cheer in absolute wonder I felt it. I felt the magic and wonder of science, nature and creation, but also the collective awe of experiencing it in community. I couldn’t help but text my son and husband all in different places watching the exact same thing across the metroplex. I don’t care to create safety policies and procedures for another eclipse, but I do want to keep chasing wonder.
In late Spring Shaun got to scratch something off his bucket list and go see one of Klopp’s last games coaching at Anfield in Liverpool. He drank in pubs and saw the places where the Beatles first played, but mostly he watched a lot of soccer. Tess and Owen both limped through their prospective freshmen years and I went to lots and lots of doctor appointments. I told a few people that we were all fine, but none of us (except maybe Shaun on his Liverpool high) were thriving. Both kids were in new schools and transitions last year. They felt them and in turn so did their mom. But this year my kids have both seemed to find their place. Belonging can do a lot for a kid. For Owen, it has boosted his GPA and mood, for Tess she is just a smidge less angry and slightly less mortified by me. Tess made perfect grades but missed the friend groups she had in middle school. Owen didn’t love the drama and proximity of Spring dorm life and even completely no-showed his Calculus final. Lessons were learned. They both joined things and Owen has an apartment off campus and found a good friend group. He took the hardest classes (Organic Chem, Cal 2 (again), Physics 2 and Technical Writing) he was an hour early for every final (I know because I totally checked) and made grades that qualify for the dean’s list. He got a 100 in Physics 2 which is a class I got to take twice. I’m not sure he eats regularly but I’m still proud partly of his grades but mostly for learning to course correct. Tess has also seemed to find her people and now she is never home. Her grades are still perfect (although I wish she’d read an actual book) and the main future lesson I think she will need to learn is to spend within her budget (and if you ask my husband that is a lesson I am also still learning). I’ve watched them both grow in confidence, community and independence this fall. Finding your people makes all the difference, I’m just trying to be a person they can always return to.
My days of school drop offs, pickups and Target runs are officially over (well mostly, Tess still likes me to take her places if I bring my credit card). Tess got her license in September and shockingly I made it with all the right paperwork for her appointment. I did not fare as well for her passport. Her style has changed once again. She has seemed to soften in attitude and aesthetic. Her tastes have significantly increased in price and she loves shoes and jeans that are equivalent to my first car payments. She keeps insisting she is going to get a job, but with soccer, advanced courses, community service and her increasing social life – I’m not sure she would have time to actually work. She has, however, started dog sitting…so hit her up if you are local. (really – I can not afford her style or appetite).
We did our usual mountain and beach trips this summer. I hiked up a mountain and walked the beach until it ended. We ate well, played games and Tess and I even tried goat yoga. It is a sharp contrast every June - the cool mountain air and the loud sweaty ocean. Our extended families also do things so differently, but I’ve grown to appreciate parts of both. Even more importantly I’m learning to make my own. My own places to return and traditions. Interestingly enough, each family has requested alternate travel plans for 2025. I have taken a handful of other trips this year. Far off lands like Mineral Wells, Maddisonville, Ingram and Waco. I’ve hiked great trails, seen the best Christmas lights, hit up my favorite book store and said goodbye. I’m itching to get on a plane (and thankfully my hubby finally got my less than discreet hint) but I’ve also learned that it is less about where you go and who you go with.
I’ve been writing forever, online or in secret. It has given me the opportunity to reflect and share and say things I’d never manage out loud. I’ve sought publishing for almost as long, but have never quite made it to the finish line. This year, I realized I was aiming for the wrong goal post. The only goal I can control was to finish, not land a publishing deal. I did exactly that and now have the help of a few professionals to help me get it out in the world. In November, I signed with a hybrid publisher. There is a book coming in early Spring of 2025, or more truthfully, a collection of these same essays I’ve been writing for decades. I’m excited and afraid. I’ve done the thing, but now it is all out of my hands. Recently, a friend just self-published her first book and the day it came out she posted about the idea of arrival feeling more like a taking off than a landing. With a 16 and a 19 year old I can grasp this analogy. My whole goal isn’t to finish parenting them, but to build kids who can launch. It is terrifying and at the same time makes me so proud. I’m trying to wrap my emotions around that for my words. I can celebrate the milestone and still let them go. Sign up for my newsletter (if you haven’t already) or on the publisher’s waitlist to stay in the know.
A theme for me this year has been waiting. Waiting on biopsy results, waiting for loss to hurt less, waiting on offers, waiting for people to call me back, waiting for decisions and next steps. I hate waiting. I generally order my coffee and food online, so I don’t have to wait. I do everything I can to avoid it. I’m not sure I want to sign up for a season of waiting. A few Advents ago, the pastor started a sermon with a verse about waiting. He asked us to turn our Bibles to Isaiah 40. I can barely get to church with matching shoes on, so I didn’t exactly remember a Bible. Instead, I grabbed my phone and typed in the verse. He started reading:
“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength"
He paused on the word wait. And read it again to emphasize the point he was going to make. My phone, however, said something different for the exact same verse: “but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength…37”
A subtle difference in a slightly more modern translation. I flipped between interpretations on my phone and found the words hope and wait used in various versions of the same passages. The pastor kept going, but I missed everything after because I was hung up on the idea of hope and waiting being related. I know the words are not interchangeable, but they are certainly connected. The hope was in the waiting, not in the renewal. I always thought that hope was something you had or found, not something you grew in the middle of the hard thing. A year of waiting has grown more than a few things in me. In addition to waiting, I’ve been to more than my share of funerals and scattered ashes. Grief has held a place in my 2024, but like hope and waiting I think that grief is closely tied to love. If you find yourself waiting or grieving this season, just know that it is also holding space for hope and love.
Here is to 2025 and all the things being grown in us.
In addition to my reflecting on my year - I always make a Spotify playlist of some of my favorite songs. As we get closer to the end of the year ...I'll post a list of favorite reads as well (but I still have over a week to squeeze in a few more books!). Consider both bonus content.
Ghosts of Christmases past (they go back further than this….but this is as far as I was willing to curate)
2022 letter evergreen Booklist
2021 letter and so it goes
2008 the first letter
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