Christmas Letter 2020

Greetings, Friends and Family!

What an unusual year we've had...Last Christmas, we neglected to write a letter for the first time in many years. We kept thinking we would do it in the New Year, but time marched on and the calendar remained full until...Everything shut down! Looking back at the beginning of this year, we are reminded of our lives, pre-pandemic. We are grateful that we had a chance to have some wonderful experiences and visits with friends before everything changed. So, here's a rundown of 2020 for the Holden Family.

Last January, we snuck in a weekend trip to NYC and stayed with our friends the MacDonald family. Tickets to a "Wow in the World" pop-up party at Town Hall were a Christmas gift for Eli. That weekend was unusually sunny and warm for January (upper 60s) and we were able to take a long walk through Fort Tryon park with our friends, hang out at Anne Loftus playground, and walk around Time Square for some tourist time! In hindsight, it was such a blessing to get into the city prior to the chaos of COVID-19. We will treasure those memories. 

In February, we celebrated "Carnaval" with our FANA family and had fun creating a tiger mask for Eli. He even won "best costume!" We also were able to visit our beloved Buffalo Botanical Gardens for "Lumagination," an illuminated evening showcase with interactive installations. Heather's school musical, "Aristocats, Kids!" was in mid-February, followed by our February vacation. Heather's mom, Pam, came to visit over the break and we began the long, arduous project of renovating our kitchen, starting with wallpaper removal. We also watched our friends, the Shurliffes', dog "Piper" while they were on vacation and started talking about a puppy in our near future. 

FANA Carnaval

           
              Lumagination                   Pam, Eli and Heather removing wall paper 

March brought sledding at Chestnut Ridge Park when it snowed and bike riding at Delaware Park when it warmed up. Heather was at an All County Chorus rehearsal with her students when she first heard about the Corona Virus and the possibility of schools closing. That concert never happened. We also had tickets to "Hello Dolly" at Sheas with our good friends, Cindy and Al Ripley, on Thursday, March 12th and the performance was cancelled at the last minute. We went to dinner instead and were all reeling with the possibility of COVID-19 in WNY. Within the next few days, schools, restaurants and businesses across the state closed their doors. 

Our self-quarantine started March 15th and we quickly transitioned to teaching and schooling Eli from home. Although there was some anxiety about safety and the uncertainty of a timeline, we tried to make the best of our time at home together. We continued our kitchen renovations, played a lot of board games, met up with friends online for virtual game nights, got outside as much as possible, and cooked a lot of meals! One of the great blessings of this time was Heather's reconnection with an old friend, Julie Furlong, who moved around the corner from us in 2019. The ladies started meeting up three times a week for morning jogs in late March and developed a strong bond that continues to bring Heather great comfort. Jamie also found fellowship with his men's bible study group which continued weekly meetings via Zoom and supported one another through a daily text thread. We are also fortunate to live just about 10 minutes away from Jamie's parents, Cheryl and Dick, so we were able to see them, masked, throughout the shut-downs. 

Easter looked quite different than other years. Jamie helped film the worship music for our online church service which we watched at home Easter morning. We also planned an Easter egg hunt for our neighbors, the Larson family, and had fun hiding over a hundred eggs in their yard! We bundled up and sat on our porch, watching them hunt while Eli shouted out clues to his friends.

April brought warmer weather and more outdoor excursions: bike rides around Orchard Park, hikes at Griffis Park, Chestnut Ridge, the Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival at the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park, and Geo-caching locally. Jamie and I learned a lot about video editing as we created online lessons for our students. Eli even got involved in the videos: singing, drumming and photo-bombing! We did a few musical read-alouds together, as a family, and made lots of Happy Birthday song videos for students, friends and family.

Griffis Sculpture
Park

Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival

    

May 2nd was Eli's referrral date and we celebrated by calling Orchard Pups in Rochester, NY to inquire about adopting a Golden Doodle pup. The owner, Kim, and Heather had a nice chat about adoption, and Eli's referral date. It turned out, that Kim had adopted her children, as well. We were put on a waiting list and told we'd likely hear something in the next three weeks about a match. That afternoon, Eli and Heather went for a bike ride at Knox Farm in East Aurora. While they were there, the woman from Orchard Pups sent a text with a picture of a one-week  pup and the message, "It's a boy!" She had received a sudden cancellation and felt the pup was destined to be ours! Eli chose the name "Obi" from one of his favorite books, "The Dragon Masters," and Eli and Obi now share the same referral date! Kim sent us weekly pictures of Obi as we waited for him to be ready for adoption in June. These updates became a great source of excitement and joy for our family as we entered the spring.

May brought take-out back into our lives and once a week we would pick up food and drive to the Hamburg Beach or Woodlawn Beach with lawn chairs to eat and watch the sunset. On Mother's Day, we decided to surprise Heather's mom, Pam, and showed up in her lawn, masked and armed with flowers! We rented an AirBnb in Sparrow Bush, NY about 10 minutes from the Klein's new home in Matamoras, PA. Heather's parents sold her childhood home and moved there in 2019, just a few blocks down the street from her sister Kelley's family. We were able to grill a picnic lunch outside at the rental house and host the family on the large porch that weekend. It was so good to be together again and celebrate Mother's Day with a mini-vacation!

We wrapped up the kitchen and a bathroom renovation in late May and started spending more of our time

outside. As virus numbers started to drop in Western New York, Eli started playing with the neighboors outside again, we built a garden box and planted our first vegetables, and even hit a socially distanced drive-in! Our dear friends, the Shurtliffes, came and spent a day with us and Brett and Jamie installed an electric fence in our yard for Obi while Andrea taught me how to tile the backsplash in our kitchen. The kids hung out on our giant hammock, reading and running around the yard. The work extended late into the evening and there was lots of laughter! We sure do love that family!

The finished Kitchen....

       

June wrapped up our school years and brought Obi home to his forever family! Berry picking, hiking at Zoar Valley and a 22 year Anniversary date night (walk in the woods and dinner on the porch of Colden Mill) were among the highlights of the month. 

In July, we visited Heather's family in Matamoras as things started to feel a bit more "normal" again. Heather's dad, Kim, got a new fishing boat and took Jamie and Eli out on the water. Eli even caught a small fish! We did some tent camping in Olean, NY and connected with the Waugamans and Heather's Uncle Tom and Aunt Karen. Eli attended an outdoor science camp, took swim lessons at Green Lake and tried tennis for the first time. Inside the house, renovations continued...We painted our living room, Jamie refinished the wood floors, and we converted our extra-bedroom into a play area for Eli. 

August brought our annual Adirondack camping trip! We stayed three nights in Wilmington Notch, tent-camping with the Shurtliffes and then moved to a hotel in Saranac Lake for two more nights. This year's trip included two small hikes up Van Hovenberg in the Lake Placid area and Baker Mountain in Saranac. We also went swimming at Lake Clear beach and Cascade Lake and did a day of canoeing with the Shurtliffes in the Saranac Lake region. Another highlight was a trip to the Wild Center where we walked through outdoor exhibits and went on a canoe tour of Raquette River. 

When we returned home, Heather started packing up her classroom in preparation for teaching face-to-face on a cart in 2020-2021. She also became adjunct faculty this semester at UB and taught the masters course, "Measurement and Evaluation in Music Education." It was a very intense fall for her. Jamie's teaching scenario was remote in September-October and then switched to a hybrid model. Eli returned to school full-time in September and is thriving in 2nd grade. He's a voracious reader who loves non-fiction and fiction alike. We have a hard time keeping up with his "habit" and have run out of space for all his books! He has continued studying piano and just recently picked up the violin again after taking a break this winter. He was also able to participate in the town's soccer program this fall and Jamie was his coach! Eli's 7th birthday was September 25th and we celebrated with an outdoor science-themed party complete with experiments and a bug hunt! We managed one last camping trip before winter in October when we met up with Heather's family at Promised Land State Park and pitched a tent next to the Weber family's pop-up camper. Kim and Pam joined us for a day of campfire laughs, fishing, and cook outs. Jamie also painted our house red this autumn and we love the new look! Our pup, Obi, is now eight months old and close to 40 pounds. We are completely smitten with him even though his puppy exuberance can be a bit too much at times! 

                                                             Promised Land State Park 

Thanksgiving was quiet. We only gathered with Jamie's parents. But, it was nice to have the time together, working on a puzzle and sharing a meal. Christmas will also be very different this year. With numbers of COVID-19 cases on the rise again, we've decided to skip dinner with Jamie's family and instead gather, masked for a gift exchange only. We are going to visit Heather's family, but we will be staying in a hotel this year. We are doing our best to still celebrate while keeping all our loved ones safe. 

These past few months have been tumultuous as we experienced transition after transition in our work lives. Schools closed again in November and reopened two weeks later, in December. Each transition affects our family, emotionally and physically, and we find ourselves very tired lately. However, we are tired and happy. We are grateful for our health, our family, and for the rich relationships we have with friends. We don't know what God has in store for us in 2021, but we do know that He is good and faithful. This past year has reminded us that we are not in control of our lives. While that can be unsettling, it is also somewhat freeing. We find ourselves more present and "in the moment" now that the future is so unclear. Right now, we have everything we need and more. One of the unexpected gifts of 2020 was cancelled child care and activity expenses, a stimulus check and other budget decreases that allowed us to give generously in some really fun new ways. It was an important shift for our family to realize that although we may not have everything we want, we have so much more than we actually need and we can share that blessing with others. In this crazy, confused and chaotic world, we are trying to keep our eyes on our savior, our minds in His peace, and our hearts full of love. 

We wish the same for you and yours.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, 

Heather, Jamie, Eli and Obi