(As in years past, we do not send out traditional Christmas cards. Since I have the blog, it's easier to share countless photos and stories for anyone who wishes to read it, postage free! Plus, my hope is that someday the kids will enjoy the running record of our family antics...if you regularly read the blog or look thru my facebook feed, some of this may seem familiar. Either way, enjoy!)
I sat down to write this Christmas letter so many times. Every time I came up w/a new theme or gimmick! I hated them all. I really wasn't a fan of 2020 (who was?) but I felt determined to write a letter before the end of the year. One thing I know - there were many things that looked different this year. I got to thinking how they looked the same though...I mean, the kids keep growing, Dave keeps working...some things don't stop for a pandemic, right?! In my quest to compare and contrast life before the pandemic hit w/life after, I made a venn diagram. Yep, I'm a teacher and a nerd. I'm guessing you've all seen one of these. Maybe you'll even make one for yourself now! The words are small, but I think you can click on it to make it bigger.
After all my brainstorming of cool ways to recap our year, I settled on the storytelling method. *shrugs* If you've met me, you know I do a lot of that! Can't make a long story medium! So here is a recap of 2020 as I tell it...The first two and a half months of the year were busy!! Three kids were in DI (Destination Imagination), gearing up for the competition. Moses was in basketball, then he and Franklin started wrestling. We had a lovely late Christmas in January w/our family on the other side of the state. We celebrated my dad's birthday and the one year anniversary of his passing by tubing with that side of the family.
As practices for DI were added, I started to seriously stress out over who was going where/when...I even made a cheat sheet! The DI competition was the same day as the Solo/Ensemble music competition, both in different cities w/one kid possibly needing to be shuttled between the two...I'm not gonna lie, I lost sleep over the pending storm of scrambling! My momma heart wanted to be everywhere and the weather forecast wasn't looking favorable, not too surprising for mid March in WI. (Cue the 'something big and scary is about to happen' music!) Then there were rumbles about a virus. It got serious...and both events were canceled. At first I felt relieved, but I was sad the kids didn't get to show off their hard work! The school did organize a way for us to see 2 out of the 3 DI teams. I remember standing around after and talking w/other parents who had spring break travel plans like us. All of us felt concerned but still felt our families could safely travel and enjoy the week before the rumored lockdown. Less than a week later, school shut down. I quickly helped the kids clean out their lockers and cubbies, telling them to treat this like the last day of school before summer. "Is there food in here? Get your gym clothes too! Why do you have 3 sweatshirts in here - nevermind, just put it all in the bag!" Later, teachers met us at the door at our appointed times and handed us laptops and supplies from kids' desks. It was sort of eerie. Some teachers had masks and gloves, others just stood outside, chatting. At that point no one really knew what was going on or how long the 'lockdown' would last. On a trip to the box store, we saw a special new robotic cleaning machine roving the aisles. The kids got a kick out of it since someone had propped up a stuffed sloth in the drivers' seat! Just like in years past, we packed up our shorts and swim stuff for a spring break road trip. Unlike years past, we also packed sanitizer, antibacterial wipes and toilet paper. We had a long list of things to see on the way (Huntsville Space and Rocket Center, Civil Rights Memorial, Sloss Furnaces, etc) but really only got to do the outdoor stuff and drive by most of them. We walked the U of Alabama campus (so pretty!!!) and headed to the gulfshore house rented by some friends. We missed the Mississippi Sandhill Crane Refuge, the Ohr/O'Keefe Museum of Art and a few things while in the area, but shared a lot of laughs, games, time on the beach and in the pool w/our good friends. It was so relaxing, just what my busy and anxious self needed!! We jokingly took a family photo 6 ft apart! We took the 'baby' born during Hurricane Katrina to see the memorial,
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Once home, virtual school started. We set up desks and camp tables, the living room became school central for 4 students and 1 teacher. Every day we sat there and every day we saw lots of animals out the windows in our woods! The coolest thing was seeing this crane pass by on the regular, twice a day. It was like he was going off to work and coming back each afternoon. We named him Kevin, like the bird in the movie Up. We're pretty sure he and his partner had a nest just west of our property line. I literally thanked God for Kevin more than once, b/c as the momma who was losing her marbles over all the random virtual school/tech issues, I needed one thing in life to be constant and not changing. I have always loved cranes and I think God knew I needed Kevin. Yes, I'm sitting here typing about a bird in our Christmas letter. This is how random and hard 2020 was! Find the sparkle in the dirt! Just be grateful for the little things! It just so happens the sparkle for me was Kevin =) About this time we started playing a lot of board games. I kept a list of what we played (it's long) and started to hunt for inexpensive new games. A friend saw that we played Monopoly and he shares my hatred for it. He sent a big box of new to us games!! Another sanity saver. We started doing a lot of things differently around this time, like celebrating first birthdays over zoom. In the midst of all the 'new normal' (hate that word, none of it was normal!), there were plenty of things that were like in years past. I bugged Dave to shore up my garden boxes, which turned into this grand plan to give me a bigger and better garden! It always makes me laugh b/c I just want him to fix up what I have and suddenly it turns into a big ordeal! No complaints - I love this version of my garden!! And why not right? On trips to the home box stores, it appeared we weren't the only ones doing big projects due to extra time at home! We also got new outdoor kitties - there's a whole saga of getting multiple cats and them running away...the latest one is Felix. I actually googled tips on how to keep an outdoor cat around. So far the wet cat food is doing the trick!
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Some of the best and biggest news to come out of this year - in June Moses graduated 8th grade!!! The school put together a video/slideshow and I cried! After subbing in the school, seeing so many of those kids' faces and getting to know them, I couldn't believe how grown they looked after not seeing them for 3 months! There was a teacher parade and they even came down our long and hard to find driveway. We ordered a yard sign and celebrated w/family. I marveled at how resilient all my kids were/are and how well they handled virtual school (after a few tweaks needed for our family to survive). At some point in the summer we ordered an everything cake. It said Happy Graduation, Anniversary, Father's Day, Birthday and there was the word covid slashed out! We didn't know if we'd be able to celebrate other things together in the future so we wanted to cover the bases! Summer in 2020 included travel and camping, just like in year's past. We spent a lot of time outside! We tubed down a river w/auntie and cousin, we hiked the IAT, we went up to northern MI, and over to Waupaca. On the Crystal River, it was decided that someone had to wait for Dad to bike back from where he parked the car. We took a vote and I was elected....which meant that all 4 kids got in kayaks and took off w/no adult. I stood there, watching them help each other, talking about how they were going to sing some song and probably beat me and Dad to the finish...they floated away and I had this moment. How did they get to be so big? "Stick together!" I hollered after they pushed off. I meant as a general rule in life, but they thought I was referring to the kayak trip. We did catch up to them and they told us of all the things they saw, the rocks they helped each other avoid and how one person needed to be turned around to get going the right way. I was proud of them and we had a lot of fun! They remembered the other times we had been, commented on how glad they were that no one had to share a kayak this time, asked for ice cream after. The familiar tradition lives on!
At the end of the summer, our church finally was ready to celebrate Easter. We had been meeting in person for a while but wanted to make a way to open up the service so a larger crowd would feel more comfortable attending. We held an outdoor service w/a spaced out picnic lunch afterwards. I joked about making this a new tradition! Another late August entry into the 'new things' column for 2020 was our participation in a black community outreach event. We linked arms w/police officers, community members of various races and city leaders to walk through the nearby city. I do not include this in our letter to 'virtue signal' or pat ourselves on the back, but I do mention it b/c of the civil and racial unrest in our nation this year. The pandemic/extra meals at home together gave us a chance to talk a lot more about these issues and I think the emotional drain we were all feeling meant that this issue really moved us. Being a transracial family, we are continually learning and working toward a better version of ourselves, our local and global community. I must admit that I don't think I would have felt compelled to join such an event or movement in years past, but given the future I wish to create for all children, it seemed fitting to participate. Going forward, we look for other opportunities to learn and grow.
As we headed into fall, the kids prepared to go back to school, wearing masks. Dave's district/school landed on the hybrid model for a return to in person learning. I was over the moon to return to my babysitting gig - nothing like an ever growing and developing toddler to take your mind off everything! We explored more than last year and she talked a lot more too. It's always nice when I hear more than my own voice all day! Speaking of new sounds, Moses had gotten a loop machine for making music for his birthday and started talking about sharing his creations, like hosting a live virtual concert. It took a few tries but we got him set up w/a youtube channel and I think about 20 people tuned in! I look forward to him hosting again! If it wasn't for the pandemic, I don't know if he'd have ever gotten a solo show =) Now he has his sights set on the bandshell in the park and a possible career in music. I love it!
From beginning to end, we hope you were able to find some sparkle in 2020!
