Christmasness Is Not Really A Word (But It Should Be)

I haven’t posted in a long time. I’ve been content to let all of your creative Christmasness permeate my soul for a little while. This year has been a tough one and I suppose it’s been harder to share. I didn’t send out very many Christmas cards. I sent out a few handwritten ones to family members and friends far away. I was going to include the following Christmas letter inside the cards, but thought instead I would share that here. So here goes:

Tony has kept super busy. An example of the nights he has been experiencing: the baby up coughing, Conner up losing his dinner, and me recuperating from surgery. There is a special place reserved in Heaven for a man who cleans up vomit two nights in a row, from two different people…or else a special place in hell experienced right in the moment. The bags under his eyes are mostly hereditary, but when you see him out on the road, move away a little bit because he hasn’t been sleeping well. He recently switched jobs and Human Resources is the next best thing to saving the world. I sometimes have to pull him out of the super high energy trance that benefits and employee recruiting puts him in. He started a new blog. Someone made a comment on it once and he’s still talking about it. It’s about politics, a topic that Tony only has a LITTLE interest in, so throw him a bone and check it out. The address is conservativegrange.blogspot.com. Tony rocks Rachel’s world and keeps her grounded and she still loves him even after 13 rather long years of marital bliss.

Rachel’s been running amok in the past year. Not running literally, because that would be a form of exercise and she has been putting that off. After a gall bladder attack that was her own fault really since she had tried to take her own life in a chocolate frenzied overdose, she had the offending organ taken out and is feeling much better. She manages to now belong to two book clubs, and one and a half writer’s groups where she dazzles (er…rather dazes) with stories of murder, mischief and camp. She is recovering from addiction to her own blog. That’s right admittance is the first step in recovery. She checks her own blog so much that the stat counter at the bottom is probably mostly her. When she’s not chanting “serenity now” while driving so that she doesn’t say anything else that could be construed as offensive or staying out past her bedtime giggling with pals, she’s molding young minds in the primary. She is grateful for her favorite calling as wife and mommy and loves those in her life.

Conner is mapping out the rest of his life. No really, he makes A LOT of maps: World maps, road maps, maps into different worlds, maps of major battles. Yes he realizes (we think) that he is seven years old, but believes in thinking ahead. How can he earn money for space camp has been a riddle for him to solve. He figures if he sells something for 5 dollars wouldn’t it be wiser to sell it for 10 so it won’t take as many to sell? He is approaching baptism and scouting and longer legs at lightening speed (well the legs not so much…but you just wait) He got top spot in the classroom Geography Bee and second overall in the second grade round and was delighted with the silver medal. Conner enjoys public speaking. He was the youth speaker in sacrament meeting and spoke for seven minutes. Mommy has asked him to not speak quite so much before she fully wakes up in the morning when he enjoys discussing important topics like the Revolutionary war, electromagnets, and deep doctrines of the church. He at least needs to wait until after breakfast so she can google anything (everything) she doesn’t know. We are so grateful he’s in our family and that he is thriving in school and with his friends who are so important to him.

Cecilia has only caused a few injuries this year. We upped our premiums due to the head butting incidents, but they are usually in church during the sacrament and inflicted on members of her immediate family, so we are not going to sue at this time. She can say 1,739 words- well maybe not that EXACT number, but at least 75. She has stopped walking like Frankenstein and occasionally lets us brush her hair. She can sound like a kitty or a dinosaur at any given time, and trust us, that’s talent right there. She gets a joke, refuses to eat anything green, is careful not to hurt herself when she throws a tantrum (because that would be silly), and is extremely adept at throwing a ball. She has a larger than life personality and is quite a social little thing and we apologize now to anyone who has a hard time concentrating in church because our daughter is oinking or dancing or pulling faces at you. It’s not you, it’s her. We adore her and love to see her and her brother interact. We waited a long time to have her in our family.

So there you have it. If you wanted a polished, perfect look at our family I’m sorry you didn’t get it. That’s just not us and we are grateful for that. The Lord has blessed us tremendously and allows us to grow and develop through out the year in the hopes that we will ultimately become more like Him. We frequently mess up and chaos and hilarity ensues, but we keep trying. We love our Savior, we love each other, and we love you.

Merry Christmas everyone! This will probably be my last post until Christmas so have a beautiful one.