Sharritt Christmas Letter, 2025

 Dear Friends and Family, 

This morning I crossed paths with Maggie, my granddaughter at 7:30. She was quoting the Grinch from the perspective of a much bigger heart. “Tomorrow is Christmas! It’s practically here!” I on the other hand, was heading out to the chiropractor to get myself put back together. It turns out to be a pretty good metaphor to the arc of life. Starting with unbounded youthful exuberance which wanes into just get my spine pointed in the right direction. Here’s the run down of our 2025 with both moments of exhilaration and no pep-in-the-step. 

Sales boomed (bloomed?) this year for Flying Dirt Farm. The lovely miss Beverly, in her first full year of retirement, sold a record amount of flowers from our two acres to farmer’s market customers, brides, new retail spots, and to wholesale florists. It was an amount that would make one of the big farmers with their fancy combine blush. It takes a lot of labor and inputs with seeds and greenhouse plastic, but it paid the bills, allowed the purchase of 2 more  greenhouses, and paid Bev.

Bev included visiting Quinn in Chicago and Maggie on a regular basis this year. It made for busier weeks but each visit rejuvenated Bev’s Grandma super powers. Bev also finds renewal in working with her field/market crew of 5 young women. Weeding a long row of lisianthus, or an hour long road trip to farmer’s market provides a lot of time to discuss the possibility of college, changes to a living situation, or funny stories about cats. It is fun to watch these young  women grow and bloom. Don’t pardon the pun.

Speaking of blooming little women, Veah and Viki continue to launch like dahlias in August. Veah graduated from high school and dived right back into school this fall. She is studying to become an occupational therapy assistant. Anatomy may have kicked her butt this fall. Or should we say anatomy’s femur extended to Veah’s gluteus maximus to be technically correct. By the same token, Veah worked very hard through frustration to do great in a writing class. Veah’s ability to get her butt kicked and take it as a lesson on the effort it will take next semester is inspirational.
She will do great. 

Viki graduated from IVY Tech in the spring with a dental assistant certification and she has a real job with real pay and the realization that some days you have to get up in the dark and go to a job that is usually pretty good with pretty good people but some days are kind of sucky. Way to go, Viki. Welcome to paying for my social security during my long, long, retirement. The other thing that Viki has realized is that with some sacrifice and reenrolling in school, she can graduate with a hygienist’s degree and really be rolling in the dough. To that end, she’ll be back to school in the spring. While she isn’t looking forward to having deadlines hanging over her while working, she is ready to get on with it.

The other blessing is the girls have left the teen tendency to want to leave any room we’re in as soon as they enter it, and have begun to actually like us. They opt to eat with Bev and me more evenings, and we have some great conversations. They are lovely young women. Bright, funny, and insightful.

We spent a week together on Lake Michigan in July. We can usually count on a day of rain for everyone to take a break from Maggie-level exuberance, but this year we had beach weather every day. We decided to just break down and tell Maggie that none of us could keep up with her and she would have to do her own thing for an afternoon while the rest of us napped.  

I had my left hip replaced on November 3rd. So both hips are now bionic. The hip feels fine. However, all of the poking around ignited a really strong case of sciatica. Consequently, I have been hobbled and seeing the chiropractor quite often. Hence the interaction with Maggie this morning and the epiphany of the arc of life from an exuberant anticipation of Christmas juxtaposed with heading out on Christmas Eve to get put back together. I will get better and the new hip will be a blessing on the farm. It was getting very difficult crawling around on the ground to plant and weed. If one is going to grow and care for enough flowers to make a combine driver blush, you have to get down on the ground and get dirty. Finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for retirement. It became abundantly clear when I went in for surgery and they attached a band on my wrist visually announcing that I am 63 years old. In my head, I know that I am 63 but not in my heart. I thought “who’s 63?” Not me. It must be true. The wristband said that it was true.  

That’s it. The good and the issues requiring physical therapy for the Sharritt household this year. Thankful and blessed to have so many people at different points on the arcs of their life. Where ever you are in your arc, we hope you are blessed.

The Sharritts