It has to be 95° on the Randolph-Macon pool deck, and I am seated in turtleneck and fleece watching Sophie, ninth-grade freestyler for the Hanover Hawks, start to turn pale with the prospect of the 500-meter race before her. Even from across the pool she is looking quite ill, but there is no stopping this train. So, while the men’s butterfly is finishing up I make my way over to the blocks and whisper next to her that she can do it, that this is nothing new–that this is just like one long practice.

Indeed, this whole season feels like the 500 to me. I don’t want to reference cheesy Disney icons in a Christmas letter, but Dory was right. You just get in that pool and start swimming, and 20 laps later you crawl out. Nine concerts, three swim meets, a couple theater events later–not to mention the blizzard of school work that a special team of excellent high school teachers and highly-trained procrastinators at my house have cooked up this year, and we may yet finish the race. There hasn’t been a single school morning this month I haven’t been in the attic still in my pajamas, digging for book swap books, secret Santa gifts, tacky sweaters, white elephants–you name it. Anyone who knows me well enough knows there may well BE a white elephant in my attic, my closet is FULL of tacky sweaters, and the thing I hate most about secret Santa is that my children keep it a secret until the very day Santa is supposed to deliver!

I know what I am supposed to say in these letters. I am supposed to tell you that Gus the dog is eating the baked goodies off the dining table one teacher gift at a time (Hey… Wasn’t Mrs. McNinny’s mini pumpkin loaf right here on the edge of the table??)The black cat we rescued from stray hood and almost lost behind our vet’s office three Decembers ago has a strange wound on the back of her head, so she runs through the house screaming “Vet bill! Vet bill! Vet bill!” on her way to pee on bath mats because she is too lazy to go outside in the cold. I am supposed to malign technology, take a dig at Facebook, tastefully avoid topics of religion or politics, and then catalogue in perhaps irreverent detail the chaos that reigns at the Burk Motel. (Well… It won’t be the FIRST formal event I’ve attended with an open head wound, I muse  while seated in the Hanover High School auditorium at the National Honor Society candlelit induction for Ellie and mopping the blood out of William’s hair.) Last year, broken finger. This year, a nasty gash in the back of his head he got putting away laundry. Go figure. Dangerous tours at the Burk house!

But that’s not what I want to say in these letters. I want the Facebook Flair of a house beautiful and gifts wrapped in free-trade rice paper weeks before the shed-o-matic of a live tree we purchased shakes off its last needle and resolves itself to stick-hood. I want a warm, well-timed and artfully arranged Christmas breakfast–homemade pastry in the shape of a Christmas tree, stockings hung by the fire with care, I want all of that. I want peace and goodwill to men on sale at Kohl’s, 30% off with double the Kohl’s cash. Six hours to go until Christmas Eve itself but according to the shops, “There’s still time!” HAH! Tell that to a parent of high schoolers and see what happens.

So I will tell you that after 10 years off the grid we finally got smart phones this past summer. To date, I have one app and my hair can still disconnect a phone call, but oh well. I feel more culturally normal, and our children are elated. Santa himself could not compete with this sheer joy of the unsuspecting Verizon guy. And despite the naysayers (people not in favor of handing $600 toys to minors) there are its perks. I now receive all kinds of messages I never would have, thank yous from children not five minutes on the bus after a morning like I just described, now grateful and expressive: “Thanks Mom! Couldn’t have done it without you…. Hope you have a good day!” Or later, throughout the day: “Hi Mom! I got a 97 on that history test!” Or, “I forgot my gym suit…” (strangled-looking Emoji). These are the texts that make up the day and make me grateful to be so ridiculously tied to an electronic pancake. My favorite application thus far? Texting teenagers from the downstairs sofa who are diddling around upstairs to go to bed–and having it work!

‘T’was the Night Before Christmas and at The Burk House,

every creature was clicking–or streaming (Who needs a mouse?)

The stockings weren’t hung, the mantle was bare;

in hopes that the decorating fairy soon would be there.

The children were texting, all alone in their beds

while visions of iPhones danced in their heads…

William is also plugged in but in a different way: though he loves his hand-me-down iPod, his device of choice–at least for a little while longer–is a two-cycle 158 MPG gas- powered Echo leaf blower. Or his weed whacker. Now that cold weather is here and my van tires will invariably leak (That’s what they do every winter), I’ve trained my ten-year-old how to start the car, haul out the air compressor and pump up the tires each morning all before he gets on the bus (!) in the very likely event that Bus-Driver Bill is long gone on a 6:40 a.m. run. It’s this kind of merriment and mayhem we have on a daily basis such that could make me lose track of my laps–if not for the little markers along the way: SAT! ACT! 5th-grade graduation! It’s all going way too quickly. I don’t want to win this race. But I certainly don’t want to DQ on the end laps.

Sophie got in that pool, and she swam. Long and lean and lovely to behold, like a seal in a $58 swimsuit. I think she finished last in her heat, but the smile that came up out of the water as she grabbed the bar on the last lap was radiant–so happy and relieved and–well, in her element. (As I will be, too, once the last Amazon order skims across the front step…!)

Sending warm wishes for a happy and healthy Christmas–a bit of peace and a lot of meaning.  And remember:

Just keep swimming!

Love from the Burks