Our 2025 Retrospective
What we send to several hundred of our closest friends.
In 2012 we began sending out Christmas letters. Our tone has to be self-deprecating over braggadocious. We’re sorry if you didn’t get one, but here’s the letter with our kids anonymized—for them, for us, and for what might get shared at their wedding.
If you’d like to hear Courtney and me talk through it, listen here:
Spring Break Trip 2025. One kid, newly permitted to drive, took the wheel for a winding ten-mile stretch through Smoky Mountain roads. You’ve never heard “Too far right!” so many times. Not the highlight of Hans’ parenting career, but we are alive and well and here to tell the tale.
What would you do if your kid’s friends offered to pay him $15 to write (and then cross out) a juvenile phrase on a math test? We don’t need a hypothetical. One of ours accepted the deal. When we found out, Hans had him confess to the teacher; detention followed (after the Dean of Students asked Courtney, “How much did he make?”). Another student even felt so bad he tossed in an extra $5. It didn’t matter—we had him give it away. “I wish you’d let me give it away myself; I already felt bad,” he said afterward.
The boys made money in other ways, too. Hans made a deal with one: $50 for faithfully wearing orthodontic bands. Another ran disc golf tournaments and took a cut of the winnings (the first six tournaments netted exactly zero dollars). All three fed a neighbor’s pets for a week. One won over $900 on an ace pot playing disc golf, leaving us to wonder if gambling is in his future. Two of them also won we-don’t-know-how-many gift cards in disc golf tournaments. This new world gave Hans a great opportunity to teach about taxes, 1099s, Social Security numbers, giving, and accounting. The boys hate making money now.
Sleeping arrangements got creative. We have two rooms the three kids alternate through. One kid, craving solitude, gave his brother $11 worth of gift cards to go bunk with his other brother for five nights. The kid who had no say in the matter was unimpressed and later posted a “Sorry, this room is closed” sign to stave off late entrants and get more alone time.
One night in particular, we got almost no sleep—but only because we took a very early flight to LAX so Hans could do a wedding. It was our first plane ride as a family, and that 5 a.m. departure bought us a full day to meander down the Pacific Coast Highway. What did we do? Stopped at a candy store, hit Play It Again Sports to buy discs, and used those discs to play with strangers at the busiest disc golf course in America while Hans and Courtney took one kid to a deeply disappointing Target. At the wedding reception, one kid sampled freely: “one Coke, one Cherry Coke, one Shirley Temple, at least one lemon Sprite, and I think there were a couple more.” He loves an open bar.
Like any growing family, food loomed large. After many hours of YouTube chefs, one of the boys decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls. Attempt one involved guessing how dough is made. Then he learned what yeast is. The next two times, the pans overflowed with delicious cinnamon rolls. He now cooks his own steaks, his own toast (on a skillet), his own everything. Another kid, who doesn’t cook, swears by vanilla bean Frappuccinos and birthday cake cake pops that he gets while the other two play disc golf. A third hits Panda Express every chance he gets—and sometimes eats so much he pukes. We’re working on self-control.
Hans and Courtney eat less because they’re getting older and slower. Hans has been experimenting with food schedules to get his A1c down. Ironic, since Courtney is the diabetic—but we’ll let Hans have his weird food world.
Hans also started writing a book about their first 20 years of marriage—basically an extended Christmas letter on how not to be. The draft is over halfway done. Courtney, who edited Hans’s cousin’s billion-page book this year, now turns to this memoir, working title You Talk Too Much. This is what Courtney does with the free time afforded her by stepping down from her role at the boys’ school (while Hans works more, coaching leaders and pastoring and writing).
Honestly, we’d want 2025 to go no other way. God is good and we love what he’s working out in our home, even though we have to take care of these nuts.