Angels Bending Near the Earth, Christmas 2025

I’ve tried three nights in a row to sit down and write this update, but I can barely keep my eyes open past 8:30. I’m tired. December teacher tired. December teacher with four kids and a deployed spouse tired.

But I am also incredibly grateful for the past year’s lessons, and despite the fact that I said a few times in the last month that this might be the year I didn’t send out a card, I couldn’t bring myself to give up the tradition. As I’ve said before, the rhythm of sitting with our address list and thinking about all of the people who have made our life rich forces me to pause in a season that can be unnecessarily busy.

Compared to one year ago, this Advent and Christmas season feel lighter on a personal level but heavier on a big picture level. So many of the people I love are going through unimaginable pain, not to mention the fractured nature of just about everything on a global scale. It’s so much.

I am reminded of the lyrics from “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” a hymn written by Edmund Sears in 1849. Sears was a pacifist and an abolitionist, a minister who believed in the equality of all humans. He wrote this carol in the era directly before we as a nation would take up arms against ourselves leaving over a million people dead.

With an unassuming start, Sears writes about the beautiful song the angels sang the night the Christ child was born. I picture a clear night sky with shimmering stars, a choir of angels announcing good news—the best news. They proclaim peace on earth, and what was the world doing? Laying in solemn stillness. Sears writes of a weary world, one with sad and lowly plains, one that has suffered long in war and strife, and with every description of depravity, Sears insists on pointing out that even so, the angels continued to sing.

I will never be one to act like the terrible thing isn’t terrible or the hard thing isn’t hard. I will be the truth teller of the ugly stuff always. But also, I will insist that we HUSH.

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

I will forever inhabit this both/and space.

I sped through the Emma Lion series this fall in my continuing quest to read all the books. In the fifth volume, the main character, Emma, is grappling with the reality that her grief over losing the man she loved will always be with her even as she prepares for the goodness of the Christmas season. She finds herself “in place, and strong, and anchored in.” I am like sweet Emma—feeling the grief of many things lost this year but also stable and safe and fine.

And now for some updates!

Will is halfway through his sophomore year at WCU. He finished up his freshman year as the fire starter in “Pippin” and with a 4.0 in the honors college before working at HART Theatre in NC on and off stage all summer. He started this semester in rehearsals for his role of Ariel in “The Tempest” and wrapped up the semester in the dance ensemble of “Holiday Inn.” We are so excited to see him this spring in the world premiere of a new show called “Peter and I,” in which he plays the role of Peter Pan. Otherwise, he’s a good kid who calls his mom.

Ben officially started driving independently at the beginning of the year, wrapped up his last ever baseball season earning a coach’s award for the season, spent the summer at every camp he could attend, and spent the fall leading the marching band as drum major and his scout troop as senior patrol leader. He accidentally went viral for his homecoming proposal when his mom posted a video on Threads, and now over two million people know that he’s a good kid just like his older brother.

Bea has grown literally and figuratively this year. She’s found her stride in school and at home. She continues to have a natural aptitude for science and picked up a cello habit this school year. Bea is part of the robotics club and the “green team” of recycling fanatics at school, and she just recently decided she’s going to start auditioning for community theatre like her older brother. She’s got jokes and eye rolls that hint at the teenager on the other side of this hill, but the good kid is right below the surface of the cool kid facade.

Case has also grown literally and figuratively this year, and she keeps stealing her mom’s shoes. She joined robotics and has settled into a beautiful rhythm at school with some of the best people helping her along the way. She loves her teachers. She loves her friends. She even kind of loves school these days, but don’t tell her I said that. What she loves most in the world is creating art, tinkering, and snuggling Eleanor. A good kid with a good heart and a good deal of ornery.

Scott is seven months into his desert vacation. It has been eventful and not in a good way. We all look forward to this time being in the rearview, but for now, we’re grateful that he was able to come home for a week in October and that he will be with us again for a week at the end of December. He has reached the stage of his Air Force career when all those hypothetical answers to the question of what he’ll do when he retires are staring him in the face. He does not yet know what he wants to be when he grows up, but we’ll keep you posted.

And I am here. I am still a fifth grade teacher. I am still mothering four good kids. I’m waking up every day excited to see what my students teach me. Last month, I introduced five kids to peanut butter & jelly for the first time—just one of the many gifts of teaching in a school rich with diversity. I overshot my reading goal for the year a good bit. I am gearing up for a relaxed winter break, the first half of which will be spent at the beach with the second half at home in the warmth of my pajamas.

As Emma said, sunshine or cloud, I’m more than fine. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, friends.