Countdown to Christmas Calendar Day 23

December 23, 2025 – 2 days to Christmas

Theme: Making Friends and Maintaining Friendships during Life Transitions

Today’s Story: The Lighthouse

Elise sat on her living room floor on December 23rd, surrounded by thirty-seven years of teaching materials in cardboard boxes that smelled like dust and institutional failure. She’d been sitting there for two hours, holding a paper turkey a student named Antoine had made in 2003, trying to decide if keeping it made her a sentimental hoarder.

The retirement community brochure sat on the coffee table, glossy but uninspiring: Résidence Les Jardins Dorés—The Golden Gardens Residence—which sounded like either a euphemism for heaven or a very expensive place to wait for death. Clean rooms. Organised activities. No ocean. No memories. No boxes of paper turkeys made by children who were now in their thirties with children of their own.

Her cottage—small, drafty, clinging to the Gironde coast like a barnacle that had developed architectural aspirations—was too much. Too many memories. Too much maintenance. Too much empty space where her purpose used to be.

She’d been a teacher. Now she was… nothing much. A person who sat around on floors all day, crying over paper turkeys.

Her doorbell rang.

She ignored it. Probably her nosy neighbour wanting to discuss the retirement community again, armed with more brochures and quasi-concern that felt like pious pity.

The ringing continued. Then someone started hammering on the door. Then a familiar voice: “Elise! I know you’re in there! I can see your car! All your lights are on! I’m freezing, and if you don’t open this door, I’m breaking a window!”

Elise scrambled up, boxes scattering, and whipped open the door.

Jean-Luc stood there grinning, wearing a photographer’s vest over a sweater that had clearly visited multiple continents, his grey hair wild from wind, a camera bag slung over his shoulder, and the expression of someone who’d just decided to show up unannounced because plans were for people with less interesting lives.

“You don’t look too bright,” he announced cheerfully. “And your garden is a disaster. When did you last weed anything? Never mind, don’t answer. I’m here for Christmas. Surprise. Are you crying? Why are you crying? Is someone dead?”

“I’m not—it’s just—” Elise gestured helplessly at the chaos behind her. “I’m packing. I’m selling the cottage.”

Jean-Luc’s smile vanished. “You’re what?”

“Selling. Moving to a retirement community. It’s really the most sensible thing to do. The cottage is too much work, I’m alone, I don’t teach anymore, I don’t—” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know what I’m living for anymore.”

Jean-Luc walked past her without invitation, the privilege of fifty years of friendship, and surveyed the disaster of her living room: boxes everywhere, teaching materials scattered, the retirement brochure gleaming like an accusation.

“Right,” he said. “We’re fixing this.”

“Jean-Luc, you can’t just—”

“I can, and I am. You’re having an identity crisis because you retired and forgot you’re a person beyond your job. Extremely common reaction, these days. Easily fixable. Also, you’re not moving to that place—” he picked up the brochure, made a face, dropped it in the recycling box “—because it looks like where joy goes to die slowly while playing organised bingo.”

“It’s a very nice facility—”

“It’s a beige prison with meal plans. You’re not going. We’re finding you a new purpose.” He started opening boxes with the confidence of someone who’d made executive decisions about other people’s lives across six continents. “What’s all this?”

“Teaching materials. Nature walks I used to do with students. Local ecology, coastal birds, tide pools—” She stopped. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not teaching anymore.”

“Not children, no. Do you think adults aren’t interested in learning about tide pools? They are. They go on Christmas breaks to do exactly that.” He pulled out a laminated guide to coastal birds, beautifully illustrated, clearly handmade. “This is excellent. You made this?”

“Twenty years ago. For a unit on migration—”

“You’re starting a business.”

“I’m seventy-two—”

“So? I’m seventy-one, and I just spent three months photographing migratory patterns in Patagonia. Age is irrelevant. You know this coast better than anyone. You know the ecology, the birds, the history. You have teaching skills. You have materials.” He gestured at the boxes. “You have a cottage on the Atlantic coast near the Cordouan lighthouse, which tourists pay stupid money to visit. You’re starting a coast walking business.”

Elise stared at him. “That’s crazy.”

“That’s your next chapter. You think I travelled the world with a grand plan? I have a camera, and I’m curious. You have knowledge and a cottage right on the coast.” He pulled out his phone, already typing. “We’re making a website. What are you calling it?”

“Jean-Luc, I can’t just start a business—”

“‘Coastal Walks with Elise.’ No, too boring. ‘Atlantic Coast Ecology Tours.’ Better. Professional. We’ll use your teaching materials as marketing—show people you’re the expert. Charge thirty euros pp for a two-hour walk. Do three walks a week, April to October, that’s—” he calculated quickly “—over six thousand euros a season, if you have at least two people per walk, enough to maintain the cottage and prove you’re not useless.”

“I never said I was useless—”

“You’re sitting on the floor crying over a paper turkey and planning to move to a place where they organise your MEALS!” He sat beside her among the boxes. “Elise. You spent forty years teaching children. Just because you retired doesn’t mean the knowledge is now useless. It means you finally have time to share it with people who’ll actually appreciate it instead of constantly asking when lunch is.”

Elise looked at the boxes. At the guides she’d made. At the photographs of students on coastal walks, all of them now adults, many with children of their own.

“I don’t know if anyone would come.”

“Then we’re doing a trial walk. Me, you, the coast. We’ll photograph it, I’ll write copy, we’ll launch your business in January.” He stood, offering his hand. “Come on. We’re going to the beach. I haven’t seen the Cordouan lighthouse in two years, and I’m told they’ve installed new lights.”

“Jean-Luc, it’s freezing—”

“So? Get your coat. The sensible one, not the fashionable one. We’re walking to Pointe de Grave, and you’re going to remember why you love this coast.”

They walked along the shore as afternoon turned to evening, the wind brutal off the Atlantic, salt spray in their faces, sand hard-packed and cold underfoot. The Cordouan lighthouse stood offshore—six kilometres out in the estuary, its white tower stark against the grey sky, the oldest lighthouse in France still functioning, built in the 1600s and somehow still standing despite everything the ocean threw at it.

Jean-Luc photographed everything: the lighthouse, the winter birds, Elise herself gesturing at something in a tide pool, animated in a way she hadn’t been in months.

“Tell me about that,” he said, camera raised, as she crouched near the water.

“Anemones. They close up between tides to retain moisture. When the water returns, they open—see the tentacles? They’re waiting for plankton.” She looked up, realised she was lecturing, and stopped. “Sorry. Teacher habit.”

“Don’t apologise. That’s your product. That’s what people will pay for.” He took another photo. “Keep talking. Tell me about the lighthouse.”

So she did. About the Cordouan lighthouse—called the Versailles of the Sea, designed by Louis de Foix, its chapel, its royal apartment, the 301 steps to the top, the keepers who’d lived there for months at a time tending the light. About how it had guided ships through the Gironde estuary for four hundred years, how it had survived storms and wars and changing technology.

“It’s still working,” she said. “After everything. Still lighting the way.”

“Like you,” Jean-Luc said. “Still working. Still lighting the way. Just for different people now.”

They walked back as stars appeared—rare, given the cloud cover, but there, faint, persistent. The cottage lights were visible from the beach, small and warm against the dark.

“Tomorrow,” Jean-Luc said as they reached her door. “Christmas morning. Nine AM. We’re walking to the best view of the lighthouse—the promontory near the fort. Bring your bird guide. I’m bringing my camera. We’re making your promotional materials whether you like it or not.”

“Jean-Luc—”

“Nine AM. Be ready. Wear layers.”

Christmas morning arrived cold and bright. Elise stood at her door at 8:52 AM wearing three layers and holding the bird guide she’d made twenty years ago, wondering if she was about to make an enormous mistake – or the first positive decision since her retirement.

Jean-Luc appeared at exactly nine, carrying coffee in a thermos and the kind of determined energy that suggested he’d planned this entire intervention weeks ago.

They walked the coastal path to the promontory—rocky, exposed, the wind constant and cold, the ocean churning grey-green below. The sun rose slowly, catching the lighthouse offshore, turning it gold against the dark water. The light was still rotating—automated now, but still there, still working, still doing what it had done for four hundred years.

“There,” Jean-Luc said, photographing. “That’s your money shot. Join Elise for guided walks along the Gironde coast, exploring tide pools, coastal birds, and the history of the Cordouan lighthouse. Learn from a former teacher with forty years’ experience. See the coast through the eyes of someone who loves it.”

“That’s too much—”

“That’s marketing. You’re an expert. Stop pretending you’re not.” He lowered his camera. “You know what that lighthouse teaches us?”

“What?”

“That purpose isn’t something you lose when you retire. It’s something you redirect. The lighthouse still lights the way—it just does it differently now. Automated instead of manned. Still working. Still valuable. Still there.” He gestured at the coast, the birds, the path they’d walked. “You’re still here. You still know everything worth knowing about this place. You’re just doing it for people who choose to come, instead of children who are required to.”

Elise looked at the lighthouse, at the coast she’d lived on her entire life, at the bird guide in her hands—worn, loved, still useful.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll try it.”

“Good. Now come on. We’re going back to your cottage, and we’re launching your website. I already bought the domain name. ‘AtlanticCoastalWalks.fr.’ You’re welcome.”

Later, after launching the website (simple, professional, using Jean-Luc’s magnificent photographs), after the first inquiry came in (a couple from Paris, interested in a spring walk), Elise stood at her window watching the lighthouse blink offshore.

Still working. Still lighting the way.

The Make Friends and Maintain Friendships Masterplan

In the storms of life, friendships are the shelters that keep us safe and grounded. A good friend doesn’t need to solve your problems; they simply offer a space where you feel seen, heard, and valued.

Think about the friends who’ve been your shelter in tough times. How did their support help you weather the storm? And how can you be that shelter for someone else? Friendship is a mutual exchange of strength and solace, especially during the holidays.

Cherish the friends who stand by you, and remember that your presence can be a refuge for them as well.

When retirement or redundancy makes you feel purposeless, reach out to the friend who sees your expertise as transferable—and actually listen when they tell you that your knowledge didn’t retire just because your job did. Accept that what you know still matters, just to different people now. Worst case scenario: You try something new, it doesn’t work immediately, but you’ve remembered what it feels like to share what you love with people who want to learn it. Best case scenario: Your world-travelling photographer friend shows up unannounced, finds you crying over paper turkeys, and refuses to let you move to a retirement community that looks like where joy dies slowly. He systematically dismantles your identity crisis by pointing out that you have forty years of teaching materials about coastal ecology, a cottage near a famous lighthouse, and expertise that adults will actually pay to access. He drags you to the beach on Christmas morning, photographs everything, launches your website without permission, and proves that retirement isn’t about becoming irrelevant—it’s about finally having time to share what you know with people who choose to be there. You discover your teaching materials aren’t nostalgia—they’re assets, that your cottage isn’t too much—it’s your business location, and that purpose isn’t something you lost—it’s something you redirect, like a lighthouse that still lights the way after four hundred years, just differently now, still working, still valuable, still exactly where it needs to be.

Who has been your shelter during challenging times? How can you express gratitude for their support?

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