The Christmas letter I won’t be sending.

I’ve been in a debate with myself about our annual Christmas letter. I am pretty sure that I am going to skip this little diddy this year. Mainly I feel it is redundant in the days of Facebook and blog posting. Most that care, already have the ins and outs of our year. I still like to dream about the content that I would put into such a dissertation if I were to write one. I dream of sending one out that would make people go ‘whoa, I can’t believe she put that in their letter’. If I was to write a brutally honest expose, it might look like this:

Dear friends and family. As 2010 draws to a close, I can’t help but reflect upon the past year. 2010 began with a whimper, my own. As 2010 ends, we find ourselves still married and no one facing criminal charges, so we are chalking it up to a successful year. We find ourselves employed, although at jobs that we often dread, but they allow us to barely pay the bills, so we will stick with them. Some of us are still working on finding the right medication routine, so in the meantime we seem to have amassed quite a collection of pharmaceuticals, which we keep in a shoe box in our closet. Not sure why we feel the need to hang onto all of these half-filled bottles, and why we keep them in a shoe box, but that is how it is.

The neighborhood is experiencing some change.  We are anticipating the low rent district showing some promise of improvement this next year.  The family of 20 that rents across the street is preparing to move out on December 31.  We will miss their wild children running naked in the summer.  We will miss watching the children sled down the dirt pile.  Most of all we will miss their mangled trampoline that lays in a heap on the lawn after it blew across the road during the last big wind storm.  We were hoping that the other neighbor might be jailed this year for his constant screaming, but alas it didn't happen.  We were pretty stoked to see that he bought a big ass motorhome that he often keeps parked on the street, impeding traffic.  His collection of inflatable holiday lawn globes was magnificient this year.  I love lawn art.  Even better is that the neighbors out our back door (in the trailer park) painted their home a magnificient pepto pink.  LOVE.IT.

The kids:

Josh is loving his new major, Linguistics. Sure, he isn’t guaranteed any type of actual paying job when he graduates, as was the case with his previous electrical engineering major, but he is happy. We find him often muttering in foreign languages. He has subscribed to the total immersion way of learning language, so when he is home on breaks and you enter his bedroom you are greeted with a variety of language being transmitted from his computer. This break he has spent hours watching old Disney animated movies in the French. While some may find his sitting around in his flannel pj pants all day listening to French or Italian or Spanish annoying, we are thankful that he loves what he is studying, after all he should since the tuition bill is $39k/year. As long as he doesn’t forget to talk to us in English we are good. He is still madly in love with his girlfriend Evy, but for now they say they will wait for marriage until AFTER college. Whew!

Kirsten (aka Bif)--in her senior year of high school--is trying to participate in anything and everything she can, all at the same time. We are slightly concerned that she is turning into a hoarder. Reasons for this fear are varied. One, I found a collection of her old worn slippers under her bed (I can’t remember what I was looking for) and two she doesn’t like to empty the garbage under her sink. She seems to prefer letting it fill the entire cabinet before her parents have had enough and empty it. She has managed to outsmart the Lynden Police on more than one occasion and remains ticket free! We were a little worried that she might get ‘pinched’ this summer when she and friends were in the park after hours watching the meteor shower. Harmless fun until the cops come looking to see whose car is parked there and shine a searchlight looking for delinquents who have violated the after dark trespass law. They managed to stay low to the ground and out of the searchlight. That would have been a big ticket. Bif and Cleetus (aka Erika) are constantly plotting something. Lucky for us they are smart girls and so they know how to stay out of real trouble.

Annika is in 8th grade and is slowly preparing for high school. Her year at home has been interesting. She amazes me how tough she can be. We feel she is our first teenager as we go thru the jr. high drama. For now she seems to be hanging out with girls whose main goal ISN’t to have a baby by the time they are 15 so we are thankful for that. For now we don’t think we have to worry about her bringing home a 17 y/o boy as her boyfriend (as some of her old friends have done)–she seems content to just be friends with the ones that are her age. She tells us daily stories of boys farting and belching and taunting teachers. Ah yes junior high. She has also brought her Science grade from a ‘J’ (meaning it was so far below a ‘F’ that we decided to call it something else), to a B. We are so proud. All kidding aside, we are glad that she is getting healthier every day.

So we end 2010 in debt up to our eyeballs, but still laughing and enjoying each other’s company. We hardly cry at all anymore over the fact that the house we own is worth less than our mortgage. It is really fine. Really, it is. Bottom line, the kids still want us all to hang out together on a regular basis, whether that means a long weekend away or playing a game, or watching a movie together. It is all good.

Merry Christmas!