2022 Christmas Letter

 

2022 Christmas Letter

Our Farm

December 5, 2022

We have reached the final page of the 2022 Calendar. It seems the days have rushed pastat a crazy pace but time has returned, for me to consider the year nearly completed.

Once I thought the days dragged on and on, but now I see them as a blur of life events and everyday happenstances. I thought I would share a few of the things that made 2022 special.

Perhaps I should begin with February. The writer that lives at this address had a birthday, some might call it a milestone, for I turned 70. 70 is just a number, but some mornings, it seems a very large number. But it offers a platform to view things in a way I couldn’t before. I have a greater appreciation of things, and a perspective on what is really important, and what, I feel, carries an inflated value. I am grateful for the life I have been blessed with and those, including you my friends, I have had the very good fortune to know and love.

Let’s jump forward to May.

Observation tower at
Clingmans Dome

We had planned to go to Colorado early in the month, but other engagements pushed it to the last week of May. Conflicts delayed with those plans as well, and our return to the Golden State was postponed. Not to be deterred, completely, we aimed southward. It had been years since we had spent time in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and that became our destination. A week at the gateway to the Smoky Mountains was wonderful. Though it rained repeatedly, and I became soaked to the skin the first day down, the precipitation filled streams and waterfalls, and this photographer found hundreds of images to be captured. I saw my first bears in Cade’s Cove. Jackie and Nick had seen bear in Alaska way back in 1999, I had been on the wrong side of the bus on that occasion. 

We walked up to the top of Clingmans Dome, drove the Tail of the Dragon, in the rain no less, spent a day at Dollywood, hiked up to Laurel Falls, and even drove out to Ashville, North Carolina. Each day an adventure. Came home to rest up afterwards.

The summer rushed by so quickly, but we did several day trips, places like Shipshewana, Indiana, and up north into Michigan.

We remained busy throughout the fall, with our home, and family. Suddenly it was Thanksgiving and now December.

Now for a bit of specifics:

Jackie retired from pharmacy in September of last year...sorta’. She has continued to fill in a few hours a week, when needed. But it appears that soon retirement...sorta’ will become retirement for real. But she’s still adjusting to this new phase of her life. Like I told her the best thing about retirement is that you get to set your own schedule.

Nick remains in the Denver, Colorado area. He has been there since September of 2021.
He transferred to a new company early this year. Though he remains in the medical device field, the work experience at ConMed is more to his liking. He works as an engineer in the research and development department. It is across town from Arvada, the municipality in which he lives, but feels the change of states, (Kentucky to Colorado) was a good choice. He loves the area, and the energy of the people there.

Cloey, our sweet little dog, is now a teenager, in real years that is. I haven’t done the math to convert it to dog years, but that is neither here nor there. But the dear thing has a series of health issues and we worry about our little girl. But she is such a blessing to our home.

Well that leaves me. I remain too busy. Guess it’s part of my DNA. Besides taking care of our home and watching over the buildings at the farm, I am active in my church. But the thing that absorbs the largest part of my day is the keyboard and the stories that come from it. After four long years and a zillion hours, I completed the third book of the Misty Creek Series. With the Sun’s Rising is scheduled for release on March 7^th, 2023, on what would have been my father’s 98^th birthday. But one project completed means another must begin. So I have begun book 4. Yes, John must be crazy.

I guess that pretty much brings you up to date, so I will close with these few words. There is a reason to celebrate Christmas, and it is not because of some hypothetical imaginary magical day. No, we understand the real reason. For we celebrate that God so loved the world, He sent his Son...not to condemn but to save. We mark December 25^th as a day we focus on the birth of Jesus Christ, for whether Christ was born on that day or another is irrelevant. But the fact is that He was born, born for you and me, and that is more than reason enough to set a day aside to celebrate.

So it is our wish that this letter finds you and yours healthy and ready to face the year ahead. That Christmas brings all the love and light it can. That the reason for the season fills you heart with joy, laughter, and light.

From the Vander Veldens of the greater Tyner-Teegarden area of Northern Indiana, we wish you the merriest of Christmases, and a wonderful 2023.

John

 

 

 

In the Box

By John W. Vander Velden

 

A bit more than a week ago the first box of With the Sun’s Rising, arrived at my doorway. Twelve copies. Those that have not been keeping close watch would not have noticed that nearly four years of my writing life had gone into this project.

Four years.

Four years of creating the story, recreating the story, revising the story, going through repeated editorial reviews of the story, going through a very diligent proofread of the story. The first editorial revision alone took eight long months.

The project required...four years.

Times I would have abandoned this project, had I not believed so strongly in the story. But for better or worse, the proof is in the box.

I can talk about the emotions that filled me at the sight of that first box of twelve books. I can talk of how it felt to hold the first one I retrieved from that carton. But nothing I say can fully express what passed through me at that moment.

Nothing!

The closest emotion non writers might understand is the birth of their child. No, I do not equate the arrival of neatly bound pages, to the birth of Nicholas. I do not want to even imply that to be the case. But after all the thousands of hours of work, the days of stressing about each scene, the hundreds of moments of self-doubt, the work, the worry, has at last, come to something I can hold.

The story was little more than imaginary stuff roaming around within the computer, but when the first box arrived...With the Sun’s Rising became real!   

But even as I hefted that first box, twenty-five pounds of books, I did not forget those that helped me reach this point. My editor and dear friend, Kristina, the Beta readers for this project, MaryAnn, Vonda, Bonnie, Nancy, and Michelle. They were the first people that I bounced this story off of. My Friend and editor Mark, who did the final proofread through supplied skills I lacked necessary to polish the story to its luster. Also the team of experts at Palmetto Publishing that made the book a beautiful work that anyone would be proud to call theirs. Each of these people were a vital in turning the story into the 658 pages of print.

Then there is the support staff, that carried me through these four years. Jackie, my beloved, lifted me when the burden of the story would have crushed, and she endured the hundreds of scenes read to her. In the end I must recognize the source my feeble writing talent and the One that gave me the story in the first place...God the giver of all good things.

All these things and so much more went through my mind when I opened up and looked into that first box.

(472 Words) 12-2-2022