My Christmas Story

My son often talks about the second to last year it snowed here in San Antonio as his favorite memory. It’s not the snow itself that made it magical, but what it represented. That was the last Christmas our entire family was still together.

I filed for divorce in November 2020. To my children, it came as a complete shock. I had suffered in silence for so long that even they, as close to me as they were, didn’t see it coming. Like many who stay too long hoping things might change, I clung to a quiet hope that maybe, somehow, it would all work out. So when the snow came that following February, despite the fractures beneath the surface, our family of seven was still living under the same roof. Maybe foolishly, maybe tenderly, we bundled up and went out to the acres where we kept the horses. We made snow angels, had snowball fights, and let the country snow stir up every kind of joy we could muster. For one fleeting day, it felt like a pause in the unraveling.

Not long after, the violence that had long simmered behind closed doors came to the surface. My spouse gave me a head injury so painful and forceful my jaw was knocked out of place. I gathered my children and fled to safety, finding refuge with my best friend and my parents. 

Eventually, a judge ordered my ex to leave, and my children and I returned to the house we once fled. It was in that hollow, healing space that my love for tea quietly began. At first, it was simple: I found myself drawn to the warmth of the cup between my hands, the calming scent rising with the steam. It became a ritual, a moment of peace amid the rubble. But then something deeper happened. My children began to gather around the table with me. We talked. We cried. We listened to one another. Somehow, tea had created a safe space.

To this day, Christmas has not yet returned to what it once was. There’s still rebuilding, still grief tucked into the corners of celebration. But in that pain, a seed of purpose was planted. Without those moments of loss and quiet reflection, I would not have been moved to build the tea brand I now pour my heart into. Every blend carries a piece of that journey.

When people share their reflections with me, when they say my tea is an experience, it means more than they know. It’s the quiet strength of survival, the healing that begins at the kitchen table.

Thank you for sharing this experience with me.