And just like that, Christmas is upon us. The Santa letters are in this issue and the newspaper office will be closed next week for the holiday.
We’ll be on racks early next week with our “Top 10 Stories of 2025.” After that, it’ll be January and we will have fallen headlong into 2026.
Christmas will look different for the Lewter household this year.
Different from recent years at least, and that’s okay.
For the past eight years or so years, we’ve left town the day after Christmas through New Year’s Day.
Usually to a cabin in Oklahoma or Arkansas. And, for the past four years, it has been an extended family affair with my folks, my brothers and their families.
We are staying home this year. Jennifer’s dad is still in a skilled nursing facility, and we don’t want to celebrate Christmas without him.
It’s up to the doctors, and Medicare, whether he’ll be home for Christmas, so we need to be here.
And, again, that’s okay.
Our kids aren’t kids anymore and a few more Christmases here together, as a family, will be cherished.
The kids are sensitive to this, too.
Last Christmas Eve they had all gone upstairs for the night.
It is tradition for all four of our children to sleep in the same bedroom on Christmas Eve.
This began as a necessity when they were toddlers to keep them all corralled and not let one get to the tree before the others on Christmas morning.
But as they have grown, they’ve maintained this tradition.
They have a good time chiding each other and laughing themselves to sleep.
We have a good time listening to all it from our bedroom at the bottom of the stairs.
Again, last Christmas Eve, Jennifer came through the house expecting no one to be stirring. Instead, she found one of our twins sitting in the den..
She asked what she was doing.
“I’m just trying to savor this,” her daughtered answered. “We only have so many more Christmases together like this and I don’t want things to change. I’m trying to enjoy the moment and remember things exactly as they are right now.”
Jennifer hugged her and sat with her and they enjoyed the moment together.
She came to bed and told me about it, half heartbroken herself.
This daughter is the one of our four children who is the most nostalgic, the most steeped in tradition and probably the most affected by change.
While it’s healthy to be leery of change, it’s also healthy to embrace it
To my daughter, I say:
Yes, the Christmases like this are numbered, but all Christmases are numbered.
Therefore, we should enjoy each and every one of them. Embrace the change.
Christmas looks a bit different every year.
While sometimes I do long for the days of four small toddlers playing under the Christmas tree, I also relish these days.
The days when of four young adults can help cook Christmas dinner and then enjoy it together while we talk about our favorite books and current events.
As much as I long for those old Christmases, I’m even more excited for the ones yet to come.
The Christmases when y’all come home from college.
The Christmases when there aren’t yet any little feet running around the house yet.
Those are the Christmases when y’all will be adults and we can sit around the tree and have adult conversations with adult glasses of wine together and enjoy memories with anticipation of the years to come.
Then there will be Christmases with grandkids to enjoy, and you’ll have your own families.
You’ll have plans of your own and your mother and I will rearrange ours and go where you are.
Years later, you will go through all this with your own kids.
You’ll see the growth and the change.
It’s all the natural course of things and like I’ve said, that’s okay.
There might be Christmases when you bring home someone special. Maybe they make it back the next year, maybe not.
There might Christmases where you get delayed at the airport.
There might be Christmases when you pack your kids up and drive halfway across the country.
There’ll be plenty of Christmas Eves when you get no sleep.
Each Christmas will be different, but each one of them will be special.
And I can’t wait.
It’s like the old Willie Nelson song says, “Phases and stages. Circles and cycles, and scenes that we’ve all seen before. Let me tell you some more.”
So, to all of you, I say:
Whatever phase or stage you find yourself in this Christmas, embrace it.
Hold onto the old but make room for the new as well.
We will adapt, but we will be together and that’s all that matters.
We hope you have a very Merry Christmas no matter what stage you find yourself in this year.
Austin Lewter is the owner and publisher of the Whitesboro News-Record. He can be reached at [email protected]