Dear Family and Friends:

Welcome to the 2023 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 the merry missive!

We don’t know if it’s the Christmas Spirit, or the gallon of cold medicine flowing through our veins, but we’re feeling punchy this year as we sit down to pen our annual review. 

All in all, it’s been a pretty good year here along the Southern Elm, with kids growing stronger and smarter every day, and parents pleased just to be hanging on.  Ella and Truman are midway through middle school, and August is finishing up the first half of his sophomore year.  Mom and Dad, for their part, are perpetually perplexed as they try to manage schedules, school work, interpersonal intrigues, and hormonal flux (be sure to check out our Holiday Cocktails page for our latest drink, the “Middle Schooler”).  But suffice to say, we are generally healthy, happy, and moving forward.  

Thematically speaking, this year proved to be one during which the Laceys were frequently on the road.  As is the case every year, we went to Tennessee to visit our close friends at Saffire Farms, and headed down to Jacksonville to visit our Florida family, this year over Thanksgiving.  We also managed to squeeze in two live LSU football games, one at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge and one in Columbia, Missouri (apologies to our Mizzou friends, and congrats on a spectacular season!).  But the big trips were spring break in Washington, DC, where the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and the kids got to see where Mom and Dad first met, and a summer cruise in the Mediterranean. 

As you would expect, all of this travel produced a billion trillion photos.  The trips to Tennessee and Florida, along with the LSU games, are included in our annual The Year in Photos gallery.  We added a special DC/Europe gallery for the spring and summer break excursions.  And then finally, we have included a very special gallery with photos from Aaron’s Travels (i.e., his business trips).  He had the idea this year that he would try to capture some of the beauty and grace of the spectacular locations he often gets to visit.  He is no photographer, but he was pretty pleased with the results.

This is also the year in which the Laceys became a two-dog household, as evidenced from our Christmas Card cover.  Asher, which is French for “poops inside constantly,” is adorable and a welcome addition to the household.  And by “welcome addition,” we mean that Aaron is still unclear why there is a second dog in the house. 

In early October, he received a call from Andrea informing him that they would be “fostering” a small dog named “Molly” for a few days (photos of Molly are in the Year in Photos).  Within hours, it became clear that the strategy was to adopt this little pup, but before the bait-and-switch could be fully switched, another family swooped in and adopted Molly for their own.

Crisis averted, Aaron very, very foolishly went back to believing that he had some role in determining household affairs.  You can imagine his surprise when, only a week later, he received another call from Andrea informing him that this time they were “fostering” two, four-week-old puppies.  For the second time in his life, Andrea had shocked him with twins.  Fearful that this curve might prove exponential, and unsure where they would put 16, two-week old puppies, Aaron relented.  For those keeping count, that makes two dogs, two fish, three kids, and five chickens.  If you’d like to see more photos of Asher, we included a bunch in The New Puppy gallery.

It is a busy and challenging household.  But it also is one filled with love, beauty, and humor (Things Our Kids Said).  In addition to parenting, Andrea continues to garden and to throw some truly marvelous pottery (Pottery Gallery).  Aaron, when he can find time, loves to work on music, poetry, and other such things (Holiday Album, Christmas Poem).  August is busy with marching band, ultimate frisbee, and robotics, Ella enjoys tennis and crocheting, and Truman is all about the taekwondo. We all have our passions, and we are fortunate enough to have the means to pursue most of them.

As we observed last year, we are working each day to find the love, humor, patience, and grace we require to get along, and most days we seem to get what we need. We hope the same is true for you, and if not, we hope it will be in 2024. As always, we’re grateful that you’ve found the time to read the digital card and wish you the very best.

Warmest regards and Merry Christmas,

The Laceys