Feliz Navidad Christmas Letter 2019

Feliz Navidad 2019

Volumes have been written, spoken and sung about the magic of Christmas. But none more poignant that the simple words of Charles Dickens, who described Christmas as a time “when Want is keenly felt; and Abundance rejoices.”  If that's true, and I believe it is, then in a sense, it's been Christmastime all year at the Edwards house. On the one hand, we have been humbled by a renewed awareness of our Great Abundance in our interactions with friends who are crying out for what we have - food and warmth, opportunity and work, protection and freedom.

Ironically, our Abundance has been multiplied by those very associations, as those who all to often go without seem to carry the power of increase for all who know them. I think that's because they often have the kind of faith made of struggle and hardship and fight. And while one could say that their very lives are evidence of a Godless world, they simply choose to believe. Is this belief born of ignorance and tradition?  Maybe. Or maybe they know something that our lives of relative ease fail to teach us. That a loving God is more not less present in the moments of our greatest suffering. That the key to life isn't in learning about ourselves, but in giving of ourselves. And that whole idea of justice, joy and happiness - it will come when it comes. I suppose that's why it's not hyperbole to say that our lives and hearts have been forever changed simply by rubbing shoulders with such humans.

At the same time, we have felt some Want of our own as we have sent Maddie off to BYU and are adjusting to a strange new reality where our family is no longer sharing the same roof or dinnertime conversations and where our days no longer start and end with one another. I would be lying if I said this didn't leave a hole - how could it not? But that open space has also given each of our girls room to expand, stretch and spread their cramped wings. It's been painfully beautiful to behold. Even now, we can at times feel a tangible Hope of greater Abundance on the horizon.

In a very broad sense, each of these experiments with Abundance and Want are a natural byproduct of the dynamic world in which we all live. In truth, there are few constants in this life. Our health, our financial situation, our family status, our home, and most every part of our reality is all but guaranteed to change. This can leave us wondering - what if anything, are the "constants"? Recently, I came upon a song I'd never heard before called "My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee". It says:

For the mountains shall depart

And the hills shall be removed

And the valleys shall be lost beneath the sea,

But know, my child,

My kindness shall not depart from thee!

To me, this very kindness is the only true constant of life. It's the great gift of Christ and the real stuff of Christmas. Yes, Christmastime brings the mic to our joys and our sorrows. But if we let it, this Light of Christ-mas will lift us up from wherever we are and enlighten us from the inside - until we can clearly see both our great Abundance, and the Want of others above our own.  This newfound vision brings the miracle of all miracles - it changes us, giving us the eyes to see our fellow woman and man with a heart full of love. Whatever your beliefs, may we each have such a heart in great Abundance this Christmas!

Merry Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. WE LOVE YOU! 

A Snapshot of the Family Edwards 2019

Final Trip to Greece with a Smattering of Istanbul

In February, Hannah and Liz headed off for one last trip to Greece to visit the DYP Refugee Center and, by extension, the Oinofyta Refugee Camp - then headed to Istanbul to have some fun. It was a bittersweet experience, as we were able to reconnect with old friends from the camp and meet new phenomenal humans. Spending time together exploring Istanbul further awakened and fed our souls. Sadly, the Refugee Center closed this month, so the Greece Chapter of our EDventure book has officially ended. For anyone who's interested, here is the first of several posts about this adventure.

Sarah and her brand new baby Juju - just 4 days old.
We met her just as she walked into the camp from the hospital after delivering

Liz at the Blue Mosque, Istanbul

EDventure US-Mexico Border

Our EDventure 2019 to the US-Mexico Border this summer was at the same time our most heartbreaking and inspiring one yet. We saw hardship and struggle and tragedy propped up against miracles and true-to-life-miracle-workers. The paradox was striking and hard to digest, yet somehow, it filled us anyway. After the Border, we headed into Mexico to play. For anyone who wants to read more, our first of several posts is here.

EDventure...Utah?

Each of us took a turn flying out to our new favorite adventure destination - Utah - to visit Maddie. Obviously, this was a selfless act of service to her (note below how miserable she is) and had nothing at all to do with our "missing to crap out of her" or anything so lame as all that.

Liz took first shift, flying out with Maddie to set her up at school

Chris took Gracie out for a Church conference in October, and Oops - there was Maddie again!

Hannah's turn was in November. She got her ticket for her birthday present.

The Bean

We did finally find a cuter, similarly fuzzy and slightly more obedient replacement for Maddie - her name is Bean. We got her from the shelter for Gracie's 12th birthday and she is THE BEST BUDDY for Grace and for Bailey too. Oh, and the rest of us like her alright too.

Surprising Grace at the shelter with her own dog. Best day!

Individual Spotlights

MADDIE

There's really only one way to say this - letting Maddie go was hard...so hard. But Maddie is loving life. And I'm not gonna lie - the only emotion that trumps how much we miss her is how proud we are of her.

Last trip to Cranes before Maddie left

Here's a little about "College-Maddie".

She's playing BYU lacrosse as a goalie, which means she has practice every day at 530am. Luckily, she attended early morning seminary throughout High School, so she sort of slid right into this. In the Fall, they had several scrimmages in places as far away as Colorado, but in the Spring, she's travels to games almost every weekend, so her life will soon go from busy to busier. If she didn't love it so much, I'd say she was crazy. But then again, who am I to talk?

Maddie has also taken full advantage of the outdoor adventure that is Utah, camping and hiking at Zions National Park and Moab, and now gearing up for an incredible ski season where "Ski the East" could admittedly start to look a tad less epic in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. But then again, there's the Utah Jazz vs Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins. But it's not a competition...

Moab with her bud Emily from MA!

Camping in a Prius - car camping at it's best!

Zions National Park

Maddie is also incredibly passionate about her political leanings - and seems to be on a sort of "mission to civilize" her friends and peers in the context of a more conservative environment. One night, a boy asked her on a date. Following some frustrating conversations with other students and with a mounting list of things on her plate, she figured she'd cut to the chase. So when she picked him up, she said, "Listen, I'm going to ask you two questions, and if you don't answer right, let's just call it a night." Her two questions were, "What do you think of President Trump?" and "What is your position on refugees?" He answered right.

Lastly, Maddie just finished her EMT certification, which was a huge time commitment this Fall. Then she applied for and got a job as a BYU EMT for next semester. We're just glad to finally have someone with emergency training on our next EDventure. Yeah, she's cool like that.

Mads and her bud Grace from Concord MA

As for who she is, to me, that's the best part - maybe the only part. Maddie, well, she shines.

HANNAH

Hannah is finding her voice. Sometimes it's angry, sometimes it's loving and sometimes it's just plain powerful. But always, it's a manifestation of her burgeoning inner strength and growing confidence as a (young) woman. Her schoolwork is increasingly focused on giantesses (is that a word?) like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eleanor Roosevelt, Maya Angelou and Susan B Anthony and she can frequently be found calling most anyone on the carpet for a perceived sexist remark. Recently, Chris made the almost fatal error of jokingly saying, "Boys will be boys" and Oh, the wrath of Hannah. Ahhh, the memories of my college days...

Teenagers on Halloween, amiright?

Hannah works 3 days/week babysitting and as such, retains a local fan base of little girls who idolize her. It seems that everywhere she goes, they come out of the woodwork, waving like mad, exclaiming, "It's Hannah!" like Brave just showed up in human form. But that's not why she does it...

Oh, and Hannah is crushing her schoolwork. Not only is she wicked smaaht academically, but she has this thing where she looks for patterns and finds answers based on those patterns, which is freakishly cool - at least to me. One day, a teacher gave her a nonsense quiz, which consisted of 20 nonsensical questions. The only path to the right answer was to see the patterns in the multiple choice answers - and they only had a few minutes to complete it. Hannah was the only student that got 100%. Honestly, I would have been lucky to get one right.

Other than school, Hannah is the CFO for DECA and will be competing again this year. She's also currently coordinating a project across our Church's Stake (aka regional) Youth Program with the goal of sending 1000 Bibles to the refugees at the Border via our Pastor friend by Christmas (check it out at www.BiblesWithoutBorders.org).

You gotta love those socks

In terms of her character, Hannah is a true-blue powerhouse. And while High School is a rough place to live for one such as her, it's also refining and strengthening her core until the time when she can finally bust out, spread her wings...and fly.

GRACE

Grace is growing up, Dagnabit. Yes, it seems that we are minutes away from having ALL teenagers in our family. Sigh. Lucky for us, Grace's fun-side is weathering the storm of hormones and so far, is still very much intact. Actually, watching Grace start to bust out has been one of the highlights of the year. While trepidacious (not a word, but should be), she surprised us all by deciding to run for Student Council this year. This meant that she, someone who hates to stand out, had to mount a campaign complete with posters and stickers (a requirement for an Edwards campaign, although she toned it down so much that it actually pained me) AND give a speech in front of her whole class - her personal nightmare. But she did it. And she WON! We were so psyched for her!

Grace is also discovering her love of basketball - another first in our family as none of us has the height for such things. But Grace, now taller than me (yes, I am the shortest) with bigger feet than all of us (except Chris), is into it. She plays on her rec team and on her middle school team, and although many of her peers play on the travel team too, this feels like a lot of ball to us. The cool thing though, is that we can see Grace's passion igniting, not only for the sport, but also for being a part of a team. Pretty cool stuff.

Here's G making her second foul shot:

Lastly, while Grace has historically been the "Queen of Distraction" at our house, which basically means 100 reminders a night to keep on track with homework, chores, etc., she's suddenly kicking butt and taking names on her schoolwork. And did I mention that she's also fun...and funny - really funny - and she can trash talk like nobody's business (it's actually a little scary).

But my favorite part of Gracie is her lesser known soft-side. Grace has this radar for the underdog. She finds them and they find her - then she quietly reaches out, without fanfare or even a word to anyone...ever. She hates when I point it out. I so admire that about her.

CHRIS

Chris' theme of the year was...motorcycles. In fact, the inertia has been so strong that our family theme this year was "Make Room to Rev Up" (as in personal revelation...I know...). And when we made the happy mistake of watching Ewin McGregor's "Long Way Round" series, he became excited (aka slightly obsessed) with BMW Adventure Bikes. So, when he turned 50 this year, that's exactly what he got. He went on to form a motorcycle gang with bunch of ex-Bishops of Revere (that's right, the gang is called "Bishops of Revere") and they've done a couple of, what I'd call "Short Way There and Back" rides together this year. But Chris is in his glory and rides his bike everywhere well into the cold weather. I say...if this is the worst of the mid-life crisis, count me in!

Fellow gang member, Mike Kruckenberg, lookin' for trouble.

We're just a hare short of 29 years of Magic. And we've still got it!

Unfortunately for Chris, any perception of toughness is quickly debunked once the girls are around.
Lately, they've taken to snapping pics of him when he dozes off at church. They find it hilarious. Chris does not.

Did I mention how into the Bruins we are? And yes, you are correct. This is Chris watching the game while snuggling with THE DOGS!   

One of the latest trends with the girls is their tendency to call Chris out on "Mansplaining" - yet another turn of events that Chris finds so delightsome. But no matter how much guff he gets, he always finds a way to turn it around and make us all laugh. This is one of many things that makes him such a phenomenal Dad and husband. While I'm tempted to describe him as our rock, he's more like our hot air balloon. He lightens things up and helps us fly a little higher, savoring the view along the way.

LIZ

Liz is still doing what Liz does, whatever the heck that is. I suppose it's a funky mix of mothering, adventuring, skiing, cooking, advocating, community-organizing, hiking, marketing, playing, working, ministering and campaigning. Noticeably absent from this list are words like cleaning and laundering.

Hiking Mount Wachusett on a stunning fall morning - just us kids

Hannah and Liz in front of the sprawling Malacasa Refugee Camp in Greece

Hiking in the woods in Fitzwilliam NH

Night skiing under a full moon 

Snowshoe running with the dogs in 1.5 feet of fresh powder. Liz's heaven.

The Bolton 5K FundRun organized to fund the Bolton Community Fund, started by Liz and this crazy group of women with the mission of meeting the basic needs of our neighbors.

Winter hiking at Arethusa Falls

Twinning. Not planned.

Hiking and swimming in waterfalls in the White Mountains with the Girls

Packing up our Girls-Campout in the White Mountains in the pouring rain after our campsite turned into a swimming pool

It's impossible for us to celebrate the great gift of the Savior's birth without similarly considering some of the greatest blessings he has given us personally- our family and friends.  Thank you for caring for us, for serving us, for playing and working with us, for loving us - and sometimes even liking us. And thank you for weaving your stories together with ours, effectively connecting the threads that give our lives richness, depth and beauty. We wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or just a super happy day. At this most blessed time of year, may God bless you and us, everyone! 

With love,

Chris, Liz, Maddie, Hannah and Gracie