Forget the Facebook, Twitter and e-mail, I'll take a Christmas letter any day of the year

It's the first day of the new year and Benny and I are busy packing away the Christmas decorations. We have fun looking through the ornaments that we have accumulated over the years and the new additions this year. The most interesting ornaments and decorations always come from our goofy friends of NMCB FOUR.


Yes, Alicia, Melinda and Becky, we hung up your ornaments this year. Olivia LOVED them, by the way.

Another favorite of mine is the Christmas letter.

Until I lived in Yuma, I didn't realize that not EVERY family wrote a Christmas letter to friends and family. Maybe it's only a Midwest thing. When I was young, I always wanted to hear what my mom wrote about my sisters and I in her letter. She would dedicate an entire paragraph for each of us which outlined our accomplishments of the past year.

Then in Port Hueneme, I read a holiday newspaper article about a family that saved their favorite Christmas letters. And after 25 years had quite a collection of their annual letters and an interesting documentation of how things changed over a course of a quarter century for their friends and family members.

Stealing their idea, I decided to start my own collection of Christmas letters.

Today is the day that I read through the 2009 Christmas letters one last time. Benny and I also reread our past letters that I saved in our "Christmas box" and laughed about what we wrote. For example, one year we wrote about Benny's promotion from ensign to lieutenant junior grade and his promotion party where he "handed out the beer. Good job Benny."

I'm always amazed how in a world of constant communication through e-mail, texting, Skype and Facebook, there are details of a person's life that I only learn in December during their Christmas letter.
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Here are my favorite lines from the 2009 Christmas letters:

But kudos to GPS tracking -- won't leave home without the Garmin.

Even though all species of salmon don't like him, giant halibut find him irresistible.

Mya turned 6 months old and still has that new car smell despite the prunes behind her ears and the ever-present lint between her toes.

But while the celebration was for her 30th birthday, it might have been her 10th, as it was a party with friends at Aces Ballpark for a baseball game. The difference, though, being the beer that was consumed by the partygoers.

Lynne is not ready to give up any of the boys' clothes until her arrival and see she finally has a daughter!

He has even asked Elsa what it was like inside Mommy's tummy. "Was it dark in there?" Elsa replied an emphatic "Yes!"

She recently went through a puppy dog phrase, which was cute when she was barking, annoying when she kept licking everyone and downright horrifying when I caught her drinking out of the toilet. (REALLY!)

Now I know why Japanese people are not overweight.

Our wish to you all, beloved family and wonderful friends, is that the special feelings of the season remain with you all year and won't ever end.

My friends and I at Clarke watched way too many movies, went to the Homecoming dance, had a blast going to the Iowa-Arkansas State game for my birthday (which Dad so kindly provided the tickets for) and dressed up as the characters for the premiere of New Moon.

That said, he has enjoyed figuring out how to be a chaplain at a base chapel and hasn't yet run out of sermon ideas, though he still has roughly 100 Sundays to go.

In a year of widespread hard times, we feel blessed to have each other, our health and an amazing network of family and friends who gave us a year's worth of memories through vacations, weddings, weekend getaways, and family get-togethers.
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Thanks to everyone who sent us a letter. I hope for even more letters next year.