Merry Christmas, 2025

Look! The virgin will conceive a child! 
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means "God is with us."
Isaiah 7:14

And just like that, Mary's and Joseph's lives were changed forever--as were the lives of millions throughout the ages who have believed in Jesus, our Savior. May this Christmas season bring you great joy and peace!

Nothing can match the changes that Jesus brought into our world, but as I was thinking about writing this Christmas letter, I realized that my family's lives have been marked with much change this year, too.

Back row, from left to right: Andy, Tobin, Lucy, Meagan, Bill, Levi
Front row: Ari, Ruthie, Lydia, Evie, Janet, Victoria, Erin, Anna, Will, and Reed

To begin with, Erin and Reed, with their two kids, moved from Ohio to Parker, Colorado, (a Denver suburb) in May, when Erin took a new job as an academic dean at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton. Reed continues to work from home. Will loves kindergarten in his new school, and enjoys playing the piano and building things with Legos, while Anna took her first few steps right before her second birthday, right on schedule for a child with dwarfism. Her seizures stopped nearly a year ago, after she started her Keto diet, and she is beginning to talk more, too. Their whole family is thrilled to be so much closer to family and old friends and, of course, we are ecstatic to be able to see them more often.

This year, along with German, Andy loves teaching vocal music for the first time at GHS. As their children grow, Meagan's homeschooling tasks are also increasing and changing; this year, she is teaching assorted classes from preschool through eighth grade. Their kids are thriving, with piano and guitar lessons, children's choir, Awana, and a wide variety of church activities. Tobin mowed lawns this summer, and will be pole vaulting for Gering Schools this spring. Everyone is looking forward to Millie's litter of Golden Doodle puppies, due on Christmas Day!

Victoria is navigating life as a single woman again, with plenty of support from Bill and me, and the rest of the family. She still works part time at an art studio, and cleans a few houses and pet-sits often. She would appreciate your prayers as she learns to handle additional adult responsibilities on her own.

Levi finally got his driver's license in August, and started college at Western Nebraska Community College, majoring in music performance. He plays the piano and sings beautifully. He is looking forward to his second semester and his choir trip to Greece in May.

Bill's longtime dream finally came true this fall, when he opened his brand new pole vault facility, which houses the Gering Pole Vault Club. He gets to pole vault whenever he wants, and people of all ages, from all over our part of the country, have a comfortable place to vault year-round. This also includes one daughter and four grandchildren, so far. Bill isn't retiring any time soon, but he is certainly spending less time at the office and more time at the pole vault building and the adjacent RV storage building that he built to help pay the bills for his expanding hobby. 

In the spring, my oldest granddaughter, Evelyn, asked me to help her edit and publish her first children's chapter book, A Princess's Journey, which is available on Amazon. Her book is a well-written, exciting, adventure story written for kids of all ages and capably illustrated by her brother, Tobin. Helping Evie motivated me to finish my newest book, The Hotel Kids, which chronicles my rather uncommon childhood growing up in two different old hotels in eastern Nebraska. It's also available on Amazon, along with my other books. 

It seems like my life is busier than ever, with family and church activities as well as writing and musical endeavors. You can go to my blog at https://janetbauer.blogspot.com/ to read more about my family and philosophy. You might also be interested in browsing my updated Author Page at https://janetbauer.blogspot.com/p/author-website.html.

Even if your life is changing in unforeseen ways, I pray that you and your family will treasure your time together this Christmas season, and that God will bless you in ways you have never expected.

  



Merry Christmas!


 


 


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Last Words

Image
One of the best things about the Internet is the ease of researching anything that comes to mind. The days of pawing through a library's card catalog in search of books and magazines that might pertain to the subject--those days are over. We no longer need to summarize the relevant content and record it on numerous notecards with all of the bibliography information we will need. No longer do we have to spend tedious hours at the library, painstakingly leafing through stacks of written material in search of pertinent quotes. I, for one, am grateful that the Internet has made research simple. These last two weeks have marked the one- and two-year anniversaries of my parents' deaths. I have been told that their last hours were peaceful, because they had entrusted their lives to Jesus. But as I've been mulling over the memories, I've realized that I have no idea what Mom's or Dad's last words were, since I wasn't with them right then, when they took their final ...
Read more

Hall of Fame

Image
On Friday, Bill and I, along with our middle daughter, Meagan, and her husband, Andy, made a whirlwind, overnight trip to Doane University in Crete, Nebraska, where Meagan was honored by her induction into the Sports Hall of Fame. (The kids stayed with Grandma Deb and Grandpa Stan, which was an adventure in itself.) When Meagan was first notified of her selection a couple of months ago, she didn't want to go. I wasn't surprised that she was being honored in this way, nor was I shocked when she said she would rather stay home.  Meagan was a member of eight GPAC championship teams, and a seven-time NAIA All American, winning six individual Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) pole vault titles. In 2008, she won the NAIA national outdoor championship. She was also a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American and NAIA Scholar-Athlete. Until February of this year, Meagan held the school record for indoor pole vault (3.96 meters/12 feet 11.75 inches) and is still tied for the top spot ...
Read more

MRI

Image
There I was, flat on my back, inside a tube, preparing for take off. 10, 9, 8, 7... It wasn't my first MRI, or even the second. I've had several over the years, just to monitor an anomaly in my brain that was discovered twenty-some years ago when my doctor was looking for something else. Nothing ever changes, but we have to check on it occasionally to make sure. So, there I was... According to  mayoclinic.org ,   "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a technique that uses a magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of the organs and tissues within your body. Most MRI machines are large, tube-shaped magnets. When you lie inside an MRI machine, the magnetic field temporarily realigns hydrogen atoms in your body." It works differently from a CT scan (cat scan), which  " combines a series of X-ray images taken from different angles, and uses computer processing to create cross-sectional images, or slices, of the bones, blood vessels and soft tissu...
Read more