This was taken from our family's annual Christmas card. My siblings and I take turns writing it every year.
Dearest friends and family --
This is Emily writing to you from Hipster, NY, aka Brooklyn. In a random conversation, I offered to write our family’s Christmas card, and my mother remembered, so unfortunately you are stuck with me this year. I asked my family, in our group chat, to send me something they learned this year in an effort to make our Christmas card a little different. Unfortunately, only my mother answered, so you’re stuck with the usual recap. I’ll try to keep you entertained, but just in case you don’t bother getting to the end (it’s the holiday season, we’re all busy, I get it) I will wish you the merriest of Christmases now from the Epperson Family. For our more devoted family and friends, read on.
AMY - It’s fitting to start with my sister this year. Amy graduated from the Naval Academy in May and the family trekked to Maryland for her graduation. We are all extremely proud of her, and glad she graduated in a year that Navy actually beat Army. Amy is now based in San Diego and serves as a Main Propulsion Officer on the U.S.S. Pickney. When I asked her what this meant, she texted me, “I help make the ship go.” She’s loving living in California again because she can hike, go to farmer’s markets and get stuck for hours in traffic on the phone with me.
CINDY - I took a poll of my siblings, and we all agree that my mother gets the MVP of the Epperson Family award. A week before my sister’s graduation, my mother shattered her elbow. Despite that, she still traveled to Annapolis and has showed nothing but resilience, courage and hope since. If we didn’t respect the hell out of her before, we sure do now. She’s as busy as ever, and continues to volunteer too much. More importantly, her cats, Max and Stanley are adequately spoiled and consistently photographed for us.
ANDREW- Everytime I try to call or text my brother, I am told, “Em, I’m really busy.” Though we all try to tell him to enjoy his college years, as the job world is much less fun, he doesn’t seem to believe us. Andrew is studying to be a mechanical engineer at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which would have made both of his grandfathers proud. He is very involved at school, in both his engineering fraternity, Sigma Phi Delta, and as a photographer for the college’s newspaper. He should also know, his oldest sister misses him very much and wishes that he would pick up her phone calls more often.
DAVID - Dad is living his best life. Between killing it at work and in his personal life, we all can’t help but feel really proud of him. He’s finally turned off Fox News, and instead is calling me to tell me of another reflection he’s had about Dante. Or razz me about living in Brooklyn, but hey, we can’t all be perfect. Between cruising around town in his classic car, smoking a stogie or being really present for everyone in his life, dad’s pretty busy.
As for me, this year I’ve really been meditating on how much of a blessing my family is. Between starting a new job to quitting smoking, I haven’t exactly been a joy to be around. But as Hemingway said, “We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.” My family has become that light for me. Our prayer this year, is that we can not only be this light for each other, but also a light for you. That through Christ’s unending light, we are given grace to love and be there for all our friends and family. So, if you’re one of the few who made it to the bottom of our card, we love you, we are blessed by you and we can’t wait to see you again soon.
Much love,
The Epperson Family
