Merry Christmas from Brambly Mountain!
- bramblymountainfarm
- 4 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Every year moves more quickly than the last. If you feel like I do, it's become a rather terrifying pace as your kids that once kept you up at night changing diapers and soothing tears now keep you up talking at the foot of your bed about friends and work and the future. And the spread of ages 6-20 has us juggling at times what feels impossible: trying to make it to Senior night and college performances alongside making sure we still keep the nightly advent storybooks wrapped under the tree and make gingerbread houses… there simply isn't enough time in the day.
Yes, we have a 20-year-old college student now! Abigail transferred to ETSU this fall to begin their Old-time music program and pursue her talent and love of music. She is enjoying it immensely over the breakneck pace of squeezing a year and a half of community college into a spring and summer semester after last Christmas so she could enter not too far off pace of her peers. All of that alongside working full time. AND not only that but she took the time this summer to become a certified rafting guide and enjoyed a lot of hours on the French Broad river guiding trips. Her tenacity in making her dreams a reality are inspiring.
Hannah is 18 and a Senior at Madison High School this year. Although it has been a bit hard on mom to relinquish homeschool to the public school, Hannah has been enjoying it immensely. She was finally cleared from her ACL repair late this spring just in time to play the last few games of the soccer season and make it to the playoffs. The ACL recovery was way more difficult than we anticipated but we are all glad it is behind us and she is excited to begin her final season at the top of her game! Not only that, but she took full advantage of the new knee to kick for the football team this fall and make Homecoming Court! She also won the county Christmas card
competition again this year! Hannah is planning to pursue a degree in nursing after high school.
Now 16, Micah grew about a foot this year and lives the life of a true country boy which consists of lots of outdoor work, dirt bikes, and snowboarding. He played for the soccer and football team simultaneously this fall, so that kept him busy! He takes classes through the local early college part-time to pursue a trade and the other half of the day is either homeschool or work. He spent all summer working 6am-5pm for a tough local man who made it his mission to teach his teen employees some hard life lessons which couldn't have been better for Micah. He works the winter months at the local ski resort. Now that he has his license he's either at work or on a snowboard!
Malachi wishes he could work at the ski resort so he could snowboard as much as Micah does, but at only 14 (in a few weeks), he’s unfortunately not quite old enough. He also
grew a foot this year and had a great soccer season playing for the local Christian school where he was excited to play Varsity as an 8th grader. He also enjoys dirt bikes but loves his music even more. If he’s not outside practicing soccer, he has a guitar in his hands or is plunking at the piano. The gift of the electric guitar last birthday was thrilling, however someone is usually hollering “turn it down!” It certainly adds to the din of our already noisy home!
Elias’s true love of his 11 year-old heart is soccer. Or reading. It’s honestly hard to decide which. If he’s not doing one, he’s doing the other. If there’s anything I love to scold my kid for it’s to “put down the book and do your chores!!” Elias did not grow a foot or even go up in foot size. But what he lacks in size, he makes up for in skill and tenacity. It earned him a spot with the "big boys" this soccer season as he was able to play in a few of the high school games. Coach told him just 6 more inches and he could play every game lol. He also will join the boys on the dirt bikes when they are all working, but that is one thing that never seems to happen - all three bikes working at the same time. The blessing is that the boys have learned a lot about small engine repair!
Moriah is blossoming into a young lady bit by bit. She turned 9 this year and still enjoys playing dolls and romping on the trampoline with her little sister some days but also likes to write in her journal, paint her nails, and gets excited about clothes. She also has become very musical and attends the JAM (Junior Appalachian Musicians) program where Abbey got her start and still teaches lessons. Moriah is learning the fiddle there and the piano at home. Still quite the tomboy like Hannah, she loves soccer and is a tough player!
Sweet little Zippy lost her first tooth recently and I almost cried. How on earth she became 6 already is beyond me. She loves books and games and playing with her favorites, Malachi and Moriah, and is quite lost when they are not home. She also loves playing with or cuddling our kitten, Ruby or puppy, Maple. There is really no end to playmates around here! She started soccer this season and is loving it!
Tim continues to forever work hard and long. Not only does he continue teaching Math full time at Erwin HS, he drives a bus and will soon be teaching driver’s ed. He has also become certified to sell insurance and works through a local broker. On top of that he built a puppy area for my growing business and is trying to finish that out alongside putting up a new coop for our chickens. There are also not enough hours in the day for Tim.
I have kept busy homeschooling and holding down the fort. Brambly Mountain puppies continue to do very well as my side-hussle and we had 2 beautiful litters this year. We continue to add dogs in and out of our program. Our first, Lucy, will be retiring soon so we kept Maple from her previous litter to continue her lines. Zeke, whom we purchased last year, will be ready to breed in a few months and we plan to add another girl to our bunch in a few weeks! 9 people, 4 dogs and a cat in 1600 square feet… yes, the cleaning alone is a full time job. But I'm grateful to be able to continue to be a stay at home mom! Give me muddy footprints and dog hair over showing up 9-5 every day for someone else!
No big trips this year…we’ve stayed close to home with a few side trips to Smith Mountain Lake to visit my aunt and uncle and to the Charlotte area where my parents and brothers all live. And a short trip to the beach to celebrate my parent’s 50th this year! I’m so grateful for their long-standing testimony of commitment to each other and our family.
We have a wonderful life, and these Christmas letters and photos sure do make everything look shiny and perfect. Far be it from me to be the source of jealousy for anyone lol. Allow me to explain that, while it all looks so good, my biggest struggle this year has been contentment. So much change with older children…and change brings turmoil as we all adjust to new things and new situations, new rhythms. All of a sudden my house feels like it doesn’t fit, I feel old and uncool, Tim and I struggle to be unified under the weight of new situations, and kids are constantly missing around the table at mealtimes. I know this is the way it needs to be as our children develop their own grown-up lives. But that doesn’t make it easy. We make the nativity look so sweet and beautiful at Christmas time. The Silent Night, warm, sweet smelling hay where a beautiful mother hovers over a cooing baby. Animals watch reverently from the stalls while angels and shepherds hum carols in the background. Ridiculous when you really think about it. What kinds of thoughts were running through Mary’s mind while she labored in a dirty stable with nothing but some cloths and straw to clean up afterwards? What was God doing in sending His son to a couple who had almost nothing to live on themselves? And what kind of timing would have Him come in an overcrowded city away from the comfort of home and family? Nothing about this story is perfect or neat and tidy. And it comforts me. It comforts me to know that Jesus himself, the Most High, the Prince of Peace, was brought into an imperfect situation that didn’t seem to fit. To me what that says about our lives is that there is purpose behind the chaos, behind the things that don’t seem to make sense. The things that, if you had control over it, you certainly would have done it differently. Contentment, directly linked to joy, is our daily choice to believe that what is happening all around us is okay. That the good, the bad, and the ugly, all of it, is meant to have purpose and bring meaning to each and every one of our lives. Contentment is faith that God knows what He is doing, even when we don’t have a clue and it feels like everything is falling apart. My hope for all who read this is that, whatever is going on in your lives this season, be it good and beautiful or hard and confusing, that you would look at that perfect, sweet Nativity scene and see that it wasn’t as perfect as it looks and yet still God chose it that way. His miracle, His rescue plan for the world, came into chaos, pain, filth, and poverty. In light of that, in the moments where nothing feels right, what might He be doing behind the scenes in our own lives?
Wishing you a Merry Christmas. May it be a reminder of God’s love for you and your family and how God uses even the most uncertain and confusing situations to bring about His glory and our good.
God bless!
