Does anyone really read these long end-of-year Christmas letters? It would be a miracle if I ever get to the point of actually printing these letters out and mailing them within an ACTUAL Christmas card. I’m still trying to deny the fact that I just might not be one of THOSE people, THOSE fabulous people that are capable of organizing their family into a super cute family photo session, picking the perfect shot, having it printed on some cute holiday card and ACTUALLY addressing envelopes and having them arrive BEFORE Christmas. That’s never been in my wheelhouse but I still hold out hope….. I mostly write these so that we can look back 20 years from now and remember all the shenanigans we delighted ourselves in. 2020 has definitely been a year that we’ll never forget!
How do I even start recapping this year? 2020 was the strangest year ever!! It felt like we were in a rickety little fishing boat in the middle of a Typhoon storm clinging to a life vest waiting for the storm to pass… but the storm never passed. From the Covid-19 virus/illness/deaths, to homeschooling, to Zoom meetings galore, to the political tensions, to the economic (& education) catastrophes, to the George Floyd protests, to the collective awakening that I felt sorta happen over the summer….this was 2020. It felt so messy (but somehow necessary?) and the sun eventually came out… and we made a loaf of Sourdough (& TikTok videos) like everyone else. LOL!
Amazingly, we did not have a single travel plan made for 2020. I had decided at the last minute to book a flight to Austin, Texas to run the Statesman Capital 10K race with my twin sister in April but Covid-19 promptly shut that down (it was actually a relief because who am I kidding?). My twin did come stay with us for a few months in the summer which was wonderful!
My Mom finally decided this was the year that she was going to move back to NM from Guam. She’d lived there for 10+ years!! Near the end of March, she hopped a flight from Guam into the hotbed of Covid, Seattle, WA!!! We were all a bit freaked out but after staying with family friends, Chondra & Adam, for a few days she eventually made it to NM unscathed. We’re happy to have her back “home”.
The children’s school went full-time online in the beginning of March and never resumed “in-person” school. Haven ended 4th grade and started 5th grade. Gentry ended 5th grade and started 6th grade. The children started the fall school semester with two days of in person school and three days of online school. Though it wasn’t ideal, they absolutely loved being able to see their friends two days a week. They also luckily didn’t have to shut the school down for any positive Covid cases. Hallelujah!! The children have both stayed active in Boy Scouts (for what they were allowed to do in person and then otherwise had virtual Scout meetings). At her request, Haven started taking voice lessons in January but Covid also shut those down. All of the children’s usual team sports (baseball, soccer, etc) were also cancelled for the entire year. We tried to keep them physically active in other ways.
With the financial/economic devastation that the pandemic caused, Charlie and I felt very grateful to be able to continue working. I was lucky to be able to work from home (with the children not being able to physically be at school) to provide Teletherapy to patients needing mental health/behavioral health sessions. It seemed that my waiting list multiplied as the months went on, both a positive and negative sign of what our country was experiencing. In February, I also trained to become a Parenting Coordinator (court ordered to assist parents in contentious divorces) with a local counseling agency. I also continued to do contract school social work for an elementary school and high school in Albuquerque. Doing school social work sessions via video proved to be a challenge to say the least. Zoom fatigue is a real thing, especially for young or special education students. Certainly not ideal but we made the best of it.
Charlie was dropped into a spinning wheel of Covid regulation chaos this year at his workplace. He struggled to keep projects running “on time” while also navigating the Covid safety restrictions mandated by the NM governor to keep workers safe on the site. It has been the most challenging time of his career he said but he still feels so grateful to work for such an amazing company that connects people all over the world. I actually gained so much more respect and admiration for him this year, witnessing his jam packed Zoom meeting schedule, how amazingly organized he is, how much pride he takes in the success of his workplace/projects, and his own leadership role/responsibility to others. It made me want to be a better wife to him at home. I’m not sure how but it made me just want to be better. Charlie also continued to be a co-leader of Gentrys Boy Scout troop and organize meaningful activities for the troop. Not even 2020 could get this guy to slow down! Sheesh!
Somewhere around the beginning of summer, even us introverts were starting to get tired of staying home. Charlie and I realized that if we were going to be working from “home” remotely anyway, then we could essentially go anywhere in the USA and work along the way as long as we had internet access. So beginning of July we hooked up our tiny Scamp camper and set off on a three week, 7 state road trip adventure!! A friend told us that 4th graders could sign up for a “National Park Pass” that would enable them and their families to enter into any National Park for FREE so we signed Haven up. We started in Grand Canyon National Park (NP) in Arizona, then Zion NP in Utah, Great Basin NP in Nevada, Glacier NP in Montana, Yellowstone NP and Grand Tetons NP in Wyoming. And a bunch of other State parks along the way. We got really lucky at the National Parks because they were very sparse of tourists during peak season due to the on-again/off-again Covid capacity restrictions. It felt like luck was in our corner everywhere we went. We loved camping and seeing all the beauty of this country. Glacier and Yellowstone were our two favorites, just breathtaking scenery and getting to see all kinds of wildlife (buffalo, bear, deer, elk, mouse, etc). We visited Hurricane, UT and stayed with my brother Marcus and his family for a few nights. We also visited Shoshone Falls in Idaho and got to stay with my cousin Misty and her family near Boise, ID. Sun Valley, Idaho and Jackson Hole, Wyoming were also super cute but a tad too “hip & touristy” for us (aka: crawling with people even in a Pandemic). Charlie was able to mountain bike in most of the locations we stayed. We did a lot of hiking, bike riding, playing in the lakes/rivers, and S’mores eating.
2020 was the year of the road trip for us: We went to the Mountain Biking Festival in Sedona, AZ in early March, to Phoenix in June to visit my brothers family (& in September they finally came to stay with us for a vacation from Quarantining), our epic 7 state road trip in July, to Austin/Houston/La Grange, Texas in November for Thanksgiving to see my sister and Charlies family, and to Aztec Ruins, NM/Durango, CO/Arches National Park, UT/Salt Lake City/Park City, Utah for skiing in December. We definitely enjoyed the open road as a mental escape this year!
For the children’s birthdays in August, the “Tomlin Farm” acquired a gift in the form of an adorable black mini-horse named Juliette. She is so mellow and sweet, we absolutely adore her!! We also got a sweet new black kitten and we’re still deciding between two names that mean, Queen of Destruction or Goddess of War. Stay tuned. Our guesthouse renters also had their first child in mid-December so we’re hoping to get some sweet baby lovin soon (newborn baby smell is a thing). I have to mention our guesthouse renters because she luckily was home when I nearly sliced off the top ¼ of my pinky finger while I was sewing face masks in March and she gave me beautiful kitchen table stitches while I turned pale and nearly passed out. Ha! I was very nervous/worried about the world during the first few months of the Pandemic and I was NOT handling it well. Luckily that has subsided a bit.
Lastly, I decided NOT to identify my word of intention for the new year in these letters because the Universe obviously read last years letter (my word of intention for 2020 was “Less”… and boy was 2020 “Less” in many ways but also “Less is More”). I certainly mean no insensitivity to those that struggled, lost their livelihoods or loved ones to the pandemic of 2020, but this year has been a positive experience for us personally. It allowed us to slow down/cut out all the noise, spend more time with our family, and take inventory of our lives in a way we would have never done. We really were able to *fully* appreciate family/friends and soak up that fleeting thing we never seem to have enough of…. TIME. It’s easy to have daily gratitude when life is giving us everything we want but it’s a true test to find it amongst challenges. We still most definitely realize how much privilege we had this year. We’re going into 2021 without expectation or any serious intention mantras or resolutions. We’re going to just chill and go with the flow, try to remain fluid/flexible. That is one thing that 2020 beat into us: leaning into uncertainty and embracing change.
I can’t even really fully make sense of 2020 yet and I’m so grateful that we (and all of the people we know personally) have survived the year (on a physical/existential level and with mental/emotional growth). We hope this letter finds you and your family holding up well. We wish you lots of love in 2021.
Love,
The Tomlins
(Charlie, Kellie, Gentry, & Haven)
Irresistible Chaos 