Dear Santa,
I know it has been a long time since I wrote to you, but something in me felt pulled back to this small tradition, this quiet magic. Maybe it is the season itself. Maybe it is the kind of year I have had. Maybe it is the part of me that is still trying to believe good things can find their way to me. I do not know exactly why, but I do know I wanted to write.
This year has felt heavy in ways I never expected. It held moments of beauty, too, but also a kind of tired I cannot always explain. I think you understand that sort of thing. I think you have seen many hearts trying their best to keep going, even when they feel worn thin. Mine is one of them.
I am not writing to ask for anything extravagant. I think what I want most is a little steadiness. A small piece of peace that stays long enough for me to breathe again. I want warmth that lasts even after the lights come down. I want hope that does not slip through my fingers the way it usually does.
There are a few real things too. Simple things. A winter that is not too harsh. A soft morning to rest in. A day where my body does not hurt and my chest feels light enough to carry. A moment of laughter with the people I love. A reminder that I am not as alone as the dark sometimes tells me I am.
I would also love something symbolic. A sign that the year ahead will be kinder. Something small that tells me I am still allowed to believe in goodness, even after everything. Maybe it comes in the shape of a sunset or a handful of stars. Maybe it is a quiet reassurance I do not have to fight as hard as I used to. I would be grateful for whatever form it takes.
I know many people ask you for big things, impossible things, and maybe this letter is strange. But I think the heart of Christmas has always been this gentle honesty. The kind that shows up in simple words and quiet wishes. So here is mine.
Please bring a little light to the places in me that have been dim for a while. Please bring kindness to the people who need it most. And if there is room, please bring something soft for me too. Something that reminds me I am still growing, still healing, still here.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for listening to the small voice in me that still believes in wonder. I hope you have safe travels, clear nights, and warm cookies waiting wherever you go.
Sincerely,
Kelly
love
The Night The Sky Couldn’t Hold Itself
If you’re wondering what you’re looking at, these are star trails.
They form when a camera stays still long enough to notice what we usually rush past. It holds its breath, holds its place, and lets the Earth turn beneath it. We’re the ones moving, but the long exposure makes it look like the stars are the ones wandering, sweeping their light across the night like they have somewhere gentle to be.
I think that’s why I love them.
Because they prove something I keep forgetting.
That movement doesn’t always look like progress.
Sometimes it looks like staying in one place long enough for the truth to catch up to you.
What I can’t stop staring at is the reflection in the water.
That doubled sky.
That echo of light.
Like the world was so full that it overflowed and spilled itself into the stillness until even the dark had to carry something bright.
There is something almost painfully tender about that.
How the sky didn’t shrink itself or dim itself or apologize for being too much.
It simply became two skies instead of one.
And maybe that is what hit me.
The reminder that even in silence, even when my days feel stuck or small or swallowed by their own shadows, things are shifting.
Healing is shifting.
Grief is shifting.
I am shifting.
Not loudly. Not obviously. But undeniably.
The water didn’t move, but it mirrored the stars anyway.
And some days I feel like that.
Quiet, unmoving, like nothing is changing at all.
But maybe I am reflecting things I can’t see yet.
Maybe the parts of me that feel still are actually catching light I didn’t know was reaching for me.
I stayed out by the water longer than I meant to.
The grass was cold.
The night smelled like winter trying to arrive too early.
And I felt that familiar ache in my chest, the kind that comes from wanting more than I can name, from missing things I can’t explain, from holding hope and exhaustion in the same trembling hand.
But the stars kept tracing their slow arcs across the sky.
They didn’t hurry.
They didn’t need to.
They simply kept going, one thin line at a time, drawing proof of their persistence in the dark.
I think I needed to see that.
Because lately I have been feeling like I am barely moving.
Like I am suspended between worlds, South Dakota and Virginia, past and future, memory and whatever comes next.
But the camera caught movement my eyes couldn’t.
And maybe that is true for my life too.
Maybe I am changing in ways I won’t recognize until later.
Maybe this season is a long exposure.
Slow, quiet, honest.
Capturing shifts I won’t understand until I step back and see the trails.
Maybe you are in one of those seasons too.
If you are, I hope you remember this.
Stillness is not stagnation.
Quiet is not failure.
And even on the nights when you feel like you are holding your breath, the sky is still moving, and so are you.
The In-between Place
This past weekend, I ended eleven years of service to Crossroads. Eleven years of sunrises and sunsets, of hauling water jugs and fixing what broke. Of cleaning cabins before anyone noticed and showing up again and again when it would’ve been easier to walk away. It wasn’t just a job. It was a lifetime of love, disguised as labor. It was ministry in motion, where the sacred wore work boots and moved picnic tables in the rain.
And now, it’s over.
I’m in Williamsburg for the week, a soft pause between the chapter I just closed and the chaos waiting for me back home in South Dakota. This week is a gift, rest after 100-hour summer weeks and the kind of exhaustion that doesn’t just touch your body, but your spirit too. I’ve been given slow mornings, gentle light, the space to just be. I’ve let myself sleep in, take long showers, go still. And still, the ache lingers. Because grief doesn’t wait for the right time. It follows you into the quiet. It packs itself in your bag and sits on your chest when the sun goes down.
And I’ll be honest: I’ve been staying with my best friend-my sun-and I feel like a bad guest.
Not because she’s made me feel that way. Not once. She’s been warm and welcoming and patient, like she always is. But because I’m not fully here. My mind keeps drifting back to the mountain, to all the goodbyes I didn’t know how to say. My body’s tired in a way I can’t explain, and I find myself quieter than usual, hollowed out, still carrying the weight of all I just left behind.
I want to show up. I want to be more present, more fun, more “me.” But right now, I’m this version-tender, frayed at the edges, not quite landed. And I hate that I feel guilty for that. For not being easier to be around. For not matching her light. But she doesn’t ask that of me. She just lets me be. Even when I feel like a ghost in my own skin. Even when I don’t have the words.
It’s bittersweet. That’s the only word that fits.
I’ve said goodbye to people I might never see again. Packed up rooms I once knew by heart. Walked the porch one last time with my hand on the doorframe, like maybe it would remember me. I left with the wind, just another leaf carried off the mountain.
And now I’m here. Not at Crossroads, not yet home. Somewhere in between. Caught between the grief of what I’ve left and the chaos of what I’m returning to.
Because home in South Dakota isn’t quiet. It’s the farm. It’s nieces with tangled hair and loud laughter. It’s family dinners and dirt roads and sunrises over cornfields. It’s love, messy and full and loud.
And I’ll bring all of this with me. The stars I watched every night. The porch light that kept me going. The part of me that learned to serve quietly, fiercely, without needing to be seen.
Some chapters don’t close cleanly. Some goodbyes echo long after the doors are shut.
But I’m learning to breathe in the in-between. To let myself be carried by the people who love me, even when I feel like I’m too heavy. To trust that rest doesn’t make me a burden.
And I’m still writing.
Because even the guilt-laced pauses and quiet returns deserve to be remembered.
Even the aching rests in the homes of those who love us.
Even the in-between.
Even this.
Hidden In The Corners
I took this picture at the end of one of those days. The kind where your body feels ancient before the sun even considers setting. Where every muscle aches with the kind of tired that sleep can’t fix. I couldn’t remember the last time I sat down, let alone stopped moving.
I’d been going nonstop since morning— soaked through with sweat and sudden summer rain,
mud on my shoes, hair stuck to my face, filling water coolers, hauling trash bags, fixing what broke before anyone even noticed it had fallen apart. It was the kind of day where the clock slips away from you, where all you can do is keep your head down and push forward because there’s still so much left to do, and you’re the one who does it.
But for a moment—
a rare, fragile moment—
I paused.
I looked up.
And there they were: clouds that held both weight and softness, like they’d been stitched together by lightning and lullabies. They glowed with that strange, storm-lit kind of light—
blue and gold and bruised gray all at once, like the sky couldn’t decide what it was feeling either.
So I took a photo. Something in me said remember this.
Not because it was perfect— but because it was real.
Because something about that sky made me feel like maybe there was more going on than I could see.
Later that night, I was curled up in bed—exhausted, sore, scrolling half-heartedly through my camera roll, just trying to tether myself to something good. And I stopped on that photo again.
And there it was.
A rainbow.
Faint. Hidden in the upper corner. Tucked into the clouds so subtly you could miss it if you weren’t really looking.
And I hadn’t seen it when I took the shot. Not even a flicker. But it was there. It had been there all along.
And I sat there—
staring at that quiet little arc of light—
and felt something crack open in me.
Because that’s what this week has been.
Heavy.
Demanding.
Full of things I didn’t sign up for
and moments that almost broke me.
But it also held things I missed in real time:
a laugh during a water break
that made the weight of the day feel a little lighter.
The wind kissing my face after the storm passed,
reminding me I’m still alive.
The hush of the world right before sunset—
when even the chaos takes a breath.
A rainbow I didn’t know was there
until the day was done.
It reminded me:
Sometimes beauty is quiet.
Sometimes grace doesn’t show up loud and obvious.
It’s tucked in corners,
woven into the ordinary,
soft and steady like a whisper.
And maybe that’s the whole point.
Maybe the good things are still there,
even when we’re too tired to see them.
Maybe the light doesn’t disappear—
it just waits patiently
for us to slow down long enough to notice.
So if your week has felt like mine—
exhausting, unrelenting,
a string of moments that asked too much—
please know this:
There might be a rainbow you missed.
There might be laughter still echoing somewhere in your memory.
There might be grace folded into the day you thought you barely survived.
You are not alone.
Not even close.
Hold on.
Keep going.
There’s still light.
Even in the storm.
Especially in the storm.
The Stars Take Note 