Christmas Letter 2009

As I write here at home, Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away and this time next week, Christmas lights will be a blur in my periphery. The children are excited about Thanksgiving festivities with friends and Brighton is especially excited because he thinks Friday is Christmas.... mostly because Friday is when all the decorations emerge from the attic. Although I think he’d be terribly disappointed given the fact we haven’t started shopping. Nevertheless, the season of the most celebrated Birth is here and I consider it one more opportunity to help our kids “get it” and one more opportunity to “get it” myself.

Here’s our update:

Julia, who will be 8 in January, still has a thing for books. I find it hard to fuss about the crumbling mountain of them by her bed or all the random places about the house I find them turned over holding her place. She’s a nature girl in the sense that she loves being out in it and doesn’t blink at picking up a Daddy Long Legs- or any multi-leg creature. She continued ballet and sewing this year and added a drawing class taught by a good friend of ours. For her second grade year, she didn’t miss a beat sharing her teacher with her brother. She has been his biggest encouragement and mine! If I have learned any thing new about her this year it would be that she keeps me guessing. Just when I think I have her pegged, she surprises me completely whether it be with belting out Take Me Out to the Ballgame for a crowd of friends or not wanting to make a simple phone call! My favorite thing about her is that she literally whistles while she works and has a better attitude about doing tedious jobs than I do! Just today she said, “Mom, if we do this together, it should be fun!” And then the whistling began.

Brighton, who just turned 6, is everything I have said about him before but just a year older----more practiced, more refined, more obvious. Whereas Julia can’t wait to have time alone in her room in the afternoon, Brighton thinks you might as well have told him to go play in a dungeon full of hungry rats. He craves company, a play mate, a companion..... at all times. “Room time” is the longest hour of his day which incidentally makes my hour seem like a vapor. His desire for company is endearing with family and friends-- young and old. He’s the best greeter around and if he zones in on you, he can make you feel awfully special. He enjoyed his first year of coach pitch baseball and his second year of Upward Soccer. Drawing is still his default and I have quite the collection of “B” originals. What I have learned new about Julia’s little brother is that he is the clone of my brother when it comes to aggravating a sister. He is relentless in his pursuit and comical in his tactics. (Pray for Julia.) My favorite thing about Brighton are the words with which he chooses to express himself- especially when expressing love for his family. He picks just the right thought and phrases it in such a way that I come close to offering Coke and ice cream for breakfast.

Jeff’s work with Tarrant NET continues to go well and he enjoys his role in the local church in Keller. The highlights of his year may have been helping coach Julia and Brighton’s sports teams.

One day a week, I am still a pharmacist at Walgreens. As far as my other days, I am in my third year of teaching at home. My class size doubled this year to a whopping TWO kids -a Kindergartner and a second grader and I am learning more than Julia and Brighton. If I can discover a cure for the rampant, and evidently highly contagious, disease of pencil dropping, I might survive this endeavor.

My prayer for my family is that Christ would not be a blur in our periphery this Christmas, but the One upon whom we focus ALL of our attention. May you and I find Him “more than enough” this glorious season. Merry Christmas!