Dear Family and Friends:

Welcome to the 2021 Lacey Family Digital Christmas Card!  As is our tradition, we begin our annual letter with the following two observations, which remain true year after year.

First, and as sincerely as it can be said, we give thanks for all of you, our extraordinary group of family and friends.  We are deeply grateful for your love and support, for your laughter, for your stories, and for your joy.  We are appreciative for all the moments we spend with you each year, and look forward to many more in the years to come. 

Second, we express our heartfelt gratitude to all of you who take the time to send us cards and letters this time of year.  We take great delight in the photos of you and your families, and in the accounts of your recent adventures.  Each year, our mantle is wonderfully crowded with colorful images of stars, trees, elves, and angels, and adorned with a host of smiling faces.  These cards, and the relationships they represent, are invaluable to us, and add immensely to our Christmas cheer.

And now, on to our year in review!

We kicked off the year, as we always do, with several birthdays in rapid succession.  By mid-March, the twins were 10, Mom and Dad were “more 40,” and August was the big 13.  Like many, we continued to lay low in those pre-vaccine days, with our primary outlet being our evening jaunts out to Hidden Valley, the local ski joint.  For those of you located outside of Saint Louis, Hidden Valley is a “mountain” in much the same way Burger King is a “restaurant.”  But I will be the first to say that it was a blessed diversion in those dark winter months.

Spring brought many welcome changes.  First and foremost, the kids all went back to school.  We can only speak for our family, but everyone’s emotional and mental health improved greatly with the return to classes, activities, and friends.  As the weather warmed, August got back to playing soccer, Truman started guitar lessons, and Ella got serious about swim team.  Andrea also swung into action, prepping the garden for summer, building a tree house right outside our back door, and undertaking a significant expansion of the chicken coop. For those who are counting, the total is now up to eight rowdy hens (God bless the city manager who determined that eight is indeed “enough” for any single household in Webster…).

Photos of almost all of these activities and events are in the “year in photos” section of the site.  In addition, there are some “before” and “after” photos of our two upstairs baths.  These were “strip to the studs” affairs.  Andrea designed our renovated restrooms, and the amazing Mark Orf, contractor extraordinaire, rebuilt them from the ground up with the assistance of his two daughters and the rest of his team.

As we rolled into summer, we celebrated two significant anniversaries in the family.  Aaron’s parents marked their 50th wedding anniversary in May, which they celebrated with a trip to Branson, Missouri. They were kind enough to bring along all the “grown-up” kids, meaning Brenna, Andie, and Aaron, while the grandkids were invited to sit tight in Saint Louis (sorry littles, you’ll just have to wait for number 75).  To mark the occasion, Aaron wrote and recorded “The Ballad of Al & Patricia Joe,” which he posted to Facebook along with a photo montage.  Because that’s how you celebrate things if you’re over 40. It really turned out well, and we invite you to take a look if you have a moment.

Aaron and Andie, for their part, celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary with a trip to Cabo, where they pretty much slept for four days straight.  Refreshed and rejuvenated, they returned home to discover that Aaron’s parents and Ella all had Covid.  Happy Anniversary!  The following few weeks were miserable as kids stayed home, quarantine periods drug on, and Aaron hid from everyone in his home office (just slide the Uber Eats under the door!).  But we eventually made it through, and no one ever saw the inside of a hospital, including Gramma and Papaw. 

Indeed, the Laceys are able to report that they have been, on the whole, in pretty good health.  Andie and Aaron both have struggled a bit with migraines this year, but this was not unexpected. There is a good amount of literature showing a correlation between migraine frequency and the number of teenagers in the home.  Aaron also has continued to deal with chronic lower back issues, but he supposes this is just the price one pays for having been a start athlete in high school and college.  For those of you who did not know Aaron in high school and college, you can just take our word that he was indeed a star athlete.  No need to fact check or ask around.  But seriously, these are minor complaints.  We have friends and family who are working through much greater challenges.  We are grateful that ours remain relatively minor, and keep those fighting the good fight in our thoughts and prayers.

Finally, we would be remiss if we did not give a shout out to our family down in Florida.  After nearly two years without seeing the sunny shores of Jacksonville, we were able in 2021 to return to our home-away-from-home.  We spent many hours with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  And whether on the beach, or in front of the X-box, time with family is always time well spent.   

We hope all of you were able to find some time to visit with friends and family in 2021, and if not, we hope those opportunities are plentiful in 2022. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it is to seek those moments out, and to cherish them once found. As always, we’re grateful that you’ve found the time to read the digital card, and invite you to check out the Christmas poems, this year’s recommended holiday album, and other sundry things on the site.

Warmest regards and Merry Christmas,

The Laceys