By Kelley Mack 
For as long as I can remember, Christmas cards have been a highlight of my Christmas season. Growing up, my mom set aside Christmas cards from the day’s mail so my sister and I could open them. We’d watch the card pile grow day after day, often looking back through, picking our favorite designs and photos, and re-reading highlights of friends’ and family members’ past year. Kind of like social media if social media was wholly pure, innocent, and wonder-filled.
Fast forward 30 years, and I was faced with my most exciting yet challenging Christmas card adventure yet: my first official family Christmas card. Mack, party of 3!
The challenge: Update my people on the last 365 days of life, 357 of which were spent as new parents, in 500 characters or less. Challenge accepted. And challenge failed. Big time.
Everything I did write was true, but the weight of what was missing made it feel like a lie. A half-truth at best. Kind of like social media in its truest Jekyll and Hyde state—a subjectively and strategically filtered snapshot of how you want others, and perhaps even yourself, to see your life. What was unwritten could have filled pages and went a bit like this . . .
This year was life-changing in every single way.
This year, my family grew by 10 tiny fingers and 10 tinier toes, but I shrank into a shadow of who I used to be.
This year, I birthed new life but died to self in more ways than I knew possible—not all at once but minute by minute, day after day, as if slowly being chiseled into an entirely new, foreign being.
This year, I watched my husband (seemingly effortlessly) become the patient, kind, loving father I always knew he’d be, but I became the mother I didn’t know how to be.
This year, my healthy baby girl grew leaps and bounds but not without my fear, anxiety, and doubt growing at double the rate.
This year, my little family experienced countless firsts—good and bad, funny and frightening, exciting and nerve-wracking, messy and messier. So much messier!
This year, I learned that no book, person, Instagram influencer, or doctor can prepare you and your spouse for your exclusively unique-to-you, neither all-right nor all-wrong journey of parenthood.
This year, I learned that joy and fear, happiness and hardship, peace and discontentment, feats and failures can, do, and forever will coexist.
Because this year, I became a mom.
So, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good, sleep-filled, silent night!
When I re-read this particular card in years to come, I hope I never stop seeing more of what isn’t there than what is. The story told in the printed 10-point font is true and will always conjure sweet memories, but the untold story is what I will forever wear as a badge of honor, a reminder of God’s constant grace, and the beginning of my made-for-me rollercoaster ride that is motherhood.
by Kelley Spencer 
by Tynea Lewis 
