Back in July, I had the pleasure of chatting with my friend, Ruthie Gray, on her “Sandwich Season Sanity” podcast. Although she released the episode on September 15, that’s when I was deep into wedding planning and didn’t have time to tell you about it. I’m doing that now!
We bore witness to tragedy. We also bore witness to love and joy, security and celebration. As with all of life, the beautiful and the terrible coexist. Light and darkness blend at dawn and dusk. The sweetness of sugar and the bitterness of coffee together awaken our senses.
My name is Migizi, but you can call me McGee, Gizi, or just Gee. My purr-son, Linda, has been moving slowly after hip surgery, so she enlisted my help to get the Christmas letter done. I’d rather wrap purr-esents, but because I want to remain her fur-iend, I agreed to write the annual Hanstra Year-in-Review.
Like many midlife couples, as children marry and move farther from home, we’ve reached the moment when long-held traditions must bend. We will still be together—just not on Christmas Day. And as I look back on 2025, I see that this wasn’t an isolated change. It was a year marked by a difficult parting, unusual holidays, shifting rituals, and moments that felt almost unreal. It all began on Day One.