Christmas Greetings from My House to Yours

December, 2020 

Hello, my friends and hasn’t this been a year for the books?  Everything felt so normal until March and then the world went over a cliff.  Predictably, the spread of the corona virus here has been slower because the population is so small in the county and not so mobile.  Sadly, ten month into this new world we are forced to inhabit, things have changed dramatically and I’ve gone from hearing about it to actually KNOWING about it, with too many friends who have been infected.  Fortunately, the preponderance of cases have been on the mild side though we do know one family that has gone through some scary times.  By God’s grace, they are coming out of the corona dark side.

After publishing my book in late October 2019, I had big plans for visits to other areas of Missouri and promoting sales.  Funny how Corona changed that.  Everything that was the logical place to set up book signing closed.  After a flurry of early activity everything came to a grinding halt.  But just as that was coming to an end, Don’s book was moving towards completion and will be coming out in Spring 2021.  Five years in the making, it’s been an amazing experience for him and so different from mine.  More to come about this in the not too distant future.

We have not been entirely isolated from our children and grandchildren.  Though living in three different states, we have been able to do a bit of prudent traveling and video chats have become a new and favorite form of communicating. 

Krista and Adrian blessed us with a fourth grandchild, a boy. Our beautiful and healthy William Abel Zavala was born on September 9^th.  Adrian’s parents were able to fly to Nashville and visit for a week and we loved being reunited with them for William’s baptism and a short visit.

Don and I continue to be involved in community work and he is currently heading up an historic restoration fundraising effort for an unusual water tower we have here in town.  There are only two others like it in the country, one in Alabama and the other, I think, in Indiana or Ohio.    I’m still working at the church doing this and that and who would have thought that at this point in my life, I would also become a videographer, research assistant, and purveyor of original greeting cards.  But yes, that is all happening. 

Life is never dull in the Jeffries household and I hope it is equally lively and stimulating in yours.  Wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a much better 2021.

Annie and Don