Dear Family and Friends,

True to its name, the Christmas Rose we brought from Lanntair Farm to Blue Note Garden in 1998 is in full bloom.

It is early morning and all is peaceful and quiet at Blue Note Garden. Well fed and content after their morning routines, Coco the old cat and Gracie the young dog are curled up in their favorite resting places. Occasionally they lift their heads to notice the birds, squirrels, and falling rain outside—remarkable after many weeks of heat and drought.

Advent has been an especially troubled and sad time this year. So many wars and such suffering, of a depth and extent I cannot begin to imagine. So much anxiety about what 2024 will bring. On the home front, several older friends are in hospice or have passed recently. The deaths have come in a cluster as Christmas neared and now their funerals will also occur one after the other in Christmas week leading up to the New Year. One former colleague has entered a home with early Alzheimer’s; her one wish to return to her childhood home for a visit gone unfulfilled in the years of her gradual decline because none in her immediate family could be bothered to go to the trouble—“she wouldn’t remember anyway.”

Gracie eventually bestirs herself and comes over to rest her head near where I am scribbling, occasionally sneaking in a lick on my hand. She must wonder how I could possibly waste so much time on a piece of paper and a pencil. Gracie will go with me to visit my old colleague this afternoon. People in homes I’ve regularly visited this year much prefer to see her rather than me, anyway. Everyone she encounters lights up when they catch sight of her.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I took Gracie with me to visit my youngest sister, her husband, and their grown children in for the holidays. It was a beautiful day for an afternoon turn-around trip over and through the mountains. On the way, the wonders of digital radio made it possible for me to listen, live, to Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge with astonishing clarity. But on the return trip, there was silence—not a smidgen of radio transmission could make it past the ancient shoulders and peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Accustomed to living with a cranky cat and a creaky old lady, Gracie is overwhelmed by all the different people she could engage with in Asheville—at one point, running with exhilarating esprit between one, then another, and then yet another, as though she were doing her best to attend to them all at once. I will long remember the sight of her in their good company.

As I watched family members and Gracie, I thought about all the boarders and animals at Lanntair Farm, such a long time ago. There was a lot about the farm that made it seem like the spirit of Christmas was present nearly every day. Perhaps that feeling takes root and grows out of being in a place and among a community focused on profound caring for fellow humans, animals, and the earth. No small task, but essential on a farm or in a garden.

Christmas traditionally manifests itself in many different ways—lights, music, squealing children with presents—but what I loved best was walking to and from the barns at Lanntair Farm, day after day, with our old dogs, Casey and McCoo. Shoveling manure at sunup and sundown put the rest of the day in perspective. Leading the horses in, we’d soon hear the comforting sounds of their feeding and their resting in sheltering byres. We’d catch Kenneth talking to the barn cats while he fed them. On especially magical days, there would be snow:

How fortunate I am to have known—and now remember—that sense of peace and joy. I wish the same for all of you! — Theresa