Dear friends, 

We hope you are having a safe Christmas.  The Holwicks are double immunized and boosted to boot but our best protection in this life and the next is our Lord Jesus Christ.  He has seen us through challenges and struggles and has never let us down.  And we shouldn’t forget the many blessings He has bestowed on us!

This Christmas we are doing something special with our kids out West – we are spending a week in Chicago with Josiah and Julia and her family, and Becca and her brood.  We love Christmas markets and Julia found the Windy City is famous for them.  I have many great memories of Chicago as a child because my grandparents lived on South Shore Drive within walking distance of Rainbow Beach.

Lots of friends and family have been able to visit us this year which means plenty of lobster bakes, whale watching and hiking rocky beaches.  Tons of pizzas, too – David built an adobe pizza oven that took months to put up but makes great pizzas and bread.  Celeste gathers all the fixings so it is quite an experience.

In July we took a six-week Western vacation.  We had intended to take the RV trailer but the electric brakes failed in Massachusetts so we went back to Maine and packed everything in our Ford pickup.  Celeste was not thrilled about being demoted to tent camping but we did save literally thousands in gas; David had to put her up in a few motels to make up for it.  In New Hampshire we picked up our grandson Weston and hit Niagara Falls, a recreated pioneer village in South Dakota and the Badlands.  Weston loved scampering over all that dirt.  Then we spent a week in Yellowstone which I consider one of the most magical places on earth.  We saw hundreds of buffalo and plenty of hot springs and geysers and spent a night in the Old Faithful Inn, one of Celeste’s bucket list entries.  We then went to Dinosaur National Monument and Weston reveled in the huge fossil bones.  He has become quite the junior scientist.  His dad Daniel picked him up in Salt Lake City and Celeste and I continued on to Nevada to see Becca.  She and her kids loved going out to the golf course next door at midnight to watch the Perseid meteor shower – until the sprinklers turned on.

From Nevada we drove to Molas Pass in Colorado and hiked 15 miles.  Josiah and Julia in Denver took us to TopGolf (Celeste won) and some unique restaurants.  Their video business is thriving and Josiah just returned from an amazing trip to the Amazon.  We left them to stay in our favorite B&B in Estes Park, then visited Warren & Stephanie Johnson who are old homeschooling friends from NJ.  Next was the infamous Sand Creek Massacre Site in southeast Colorado, then over to the panhandle of Oklahoma to look for the grave of a Holwick ancestor.  There was no trace of his grave and hardly anything of his town but it was an interesting exploration.  The Sullivans hosted us in their beautiful home in Arkansas.  Cemeteries in Illinois and friends in Ohio followed, with short visits to my sister Kristy and brother Jeb in Virginia.  I think the whole trip was 10,000 miles.  Next year will be longer because we hope to finally get to Alaska and Banff.

Celeste’s mom, Jackie, is still with us and has a quiet daily routine.  We watched all the seasons of “Doc Martin” multiple times and now are on our second showing of all seasons of “The Waltons”.  Very wholesome fare.  Celeste’s sister, Sara, lives with us and we all form a good caregiver team, augmented by many visits from the extended family.

Our church work has been expanding.  Boothbay Baptist asked me to be an elder and Celeste to be a deaconess.  She is also leading Junior Church each week and loves it.  COVID has hit the church attendance and we currently have no pastor so it has been a struggle for them.  I get plenty of opportunities to preach.  Recently I was given two hours’ notice and was able to pull a sermon together anyway.  I love to study God’s Word and give sermons but I also enjoy the holiday seasons more because I can sit back and watch others organize everything.

God has been good to us and we are truly thankful for all the wonderful people he has put in our lives.  That includes you!

Love,
David & Celeste