(Originally written in 2015)

Every year as I was growing up, my mother wrote dozens and dozens of Christmas cards. She had her address book out with names and addresses of friends and family that my parents regularly contacted. She'd go to the store to buy boxes of cards and spent hours writing letters and addressing the envelopes.

I guess I always thought Christmas cards are just what everyone did. We got seemingly hundreds in the mail that my mother would tape to the wall and it was then I knew it was Christmas.

As long as I can remember, I've sent Christmas cards to friends and family and tried not to leave anyone out. I changed course a little in 2002 by making my own cards. Not willing to settle for the usual, it takes a bit of effort. Occasionally, there is a year that I simply cannot get them out in time to arrive in mailboxes by Christmas and there was a year or two I relied on a generic digital delivery.

As I look through some past Christmas cards, I couldn't help but reminisce the different chapters of my life. Each one captured just a single moment in time but it's not hard to fill in the gap from year to year thinking of the jobs I had, changes in the family, and - at times - the burdens that I carried on my shoulders.

This collection of cards marks every Christmas I've spent in Spring Hill. It marks the birth of 3 children, the adoption of two dogs, the navigation of jobs in and around Nashville, and a journey through law school. It also marks the making of hundreds of friends for that ever-growing address list.