Merry Christmas Eve!

Hi all! I hope you're having an awesome Christmas so far! As promised, here is our Christmas pic & letter that Robb writes every year. If you don't understand something he said, it's probably a joke... So with that in mind...

Welcome to the 2009 edition of the XXXXXXX family Christmas letter. This may surprise some of you, but I tend to leave writing this letter until the last minute. I would characterize it as the three stages of letter writing procrastination. The first stage is optimism. I start out in January with the best intentions of making notes throughout the year. This rarely seems to happen. I tend to put this off and then November rolls around and we enter the second stage, realism. This is the stage where I’m “too busy” with Thanksgiving approaching and nobody really writes their letters before Thanksgiving, or December or any other excuse that pops into my head. This realism stage (meaning I really should have had this letter done by now) lasts until about a week before Christmas, when the third stage of panic sets in. I have to start writing. I have no more time for excuses. If we are going to send a Christmas letter, I need to get going. Not sending a Christmas letter may be an idea worth exploring. I talk to Val about it….. She expresses her ideas on the subject so here I am writing the letter.

Ryan had a big year. In early April, Ryan put me in the market for another car. Due to icy roads he was hit by another car while driving our minivan. Since it wasn’t his fault, we didn’t get a bumper sticker to commemorate it. In May he graduated from XXXXXX College’s online high school program and we celebrated with a huge party. For Ryan’s 18th birthday Val bought him a hedgehog. He was planning on taking it to the 4H county fair, until the day before the fair when he discovered that his hedgehog had given birth to three babies. The babies were all girls and two are still available (hint..hint..). He did take other projects to the fair, and went to the State fair with a modeling project and a demonstration project. In August Ryan decided to move to XXXX City, to a house near my office, with some friends. Ryan has worked several different jobs through the last year. Subway, pizza delivery, maintenance and housekeeping at a local motel, and now is working in the tire department at Sam’s Club in XXXXX. Ryan has a very nice girlfriend named Danika and is planning on taking some classes at the local community college in the fall.

Maddy turned 15 in October and is a freshman in High School. She is very involved in marching band, pep band, jazz band, stage manager for the fall play, key club, and tag. She has so many activities that we have to make reservations two weeks in advance to see her. I think she is subtly trying to persuade me she needs a school permit so she can drive herself to all of her events. Unfortunately for her I am too dense for subtle persuasion to work. Maddy was confirmed this past May, the same weekend as Ryan's grad party in order to maximize family attendance at both. Maddy worked detasseling this summer and used the money for a laptop. After school started, she got a facebook account and within the first 24 hours had roughly a bazillion friends. A typical night for Maddy (when she is home) involves her sitting on the couch, texting on her cell phone, laptop on facebook “working on homework”. Maddy is still playing the piano and went to the State Fair for the first time with a piano solo.

Meri will turn 10 in January and is in the fourth grade. She is in the local Taekwondo club and will test for her yellow belt in January. Meri is still interested in music and singing. Last month she watched the Phantom of the Opera for the first time and fell in love with it, singing along with all the songs. Meri - not to be outdone by Maddy, saved pop cans from various sources all summer and part of the fall to purchase her own laptop. Meri has also taken an interest in sewing. She loves to watch the sewing and clothing design shows with Val and decided she wanted to design her own clothes. She took Val’s dressmaking dummy, designed a dress, and wore it to church the next week. She joined the American Sewing Guild and attends the monthly meetings with Val. She loves getting new ideas and free fabric at the meetings. We'll let you know when she gets to be on Project Runway.

Val is still active in ASG (militant sewing group) and makes as many clothes for the girls as they'll let her. She made several Christmas presents this year for extended family and friends, but I'm not allowed to tell you what they are... She is active in our church Ladies Guild, and the LWMS mission group for Central Iowa. The good part about Ryan moving, not counting more food in the fridge, was that after a seven-day waiting period, Val turned Ryan’s room into a sewing room. This leaves the dining room table available for coats, book bags, and the occasional holiday dinner. Val is enjoying her job telecommuting for XXXXXXX. Hopefully someday she will get to meet her co-workers. I continue working at XXXXXXXXXXXX. Despite near constant pressure from my family, (and my bagpipe instructor), to quit playing, I continue to play the bagpipes. Once again we brought in the New Year with Auld Lange Syne, and I plan on annoying select people with Christmas caroling on the pipes.

In April I bought an electric smoker grill, and used it to make smoked pork loin for Ryan's graduation party and Maddy's confirmation. Prior to the graduation party I tried my first pork loin and it turned out great. The kids liked it so much that Ryan said it tasted like someone else cooked it. (This has to be the highest compliment my cooking has ever received.) Speaking of cooking, last July, Val, Meri and I were running errands while Maddy cooked dinner and Ryan was working delivering pizza. We were delayed running our errands and the chicken that Maddy cooked had dried out by the time we arrived to eat. Both Maddy and Meri complained about the meal and wanted to order pizza. About two minutes into my speech about not wasting food and that pizza wasn’t going to magically appear from heaven, Ryan pulled up out front, ran in with a pizza, dropped it on the table and left saying he would explain later. (It was a wrong order.) Maddy and Meri immediately pushed their plates away and dug in. God has a sense of humor.

In June we had new addition to our family. Meri bought another golden retriever puppy, “Ellie” as a future wife for Duke (our two year old Golden). Ellie is very playful, and gets along very well with Duke but has a tendency to annoy our 9-year-old basset hound, Sorsha.

With the Christmas Season upon us, always keep in mind the true meaning of Christmas. God, in his mercy, sent Jesus to suffer in our place, to save us from our sins and to restore peace on earth. Peace between God and man. Have a blessed and peaceful Christmas.

The XXXXXXXXs - Robb, Val, Ryan, Maddy & Meri