Greetings!

For the past three years, IZ and I have found ourselves in a bit of a pickle.  What to do about the annual Christmas card?  You might have noticed that you haven’t received a card from us in quite some time.  There’s a very good reason for that… it goes something like this.

December rolls around and I begin nudging IZ, “We really should pick out a card to send this year.”  Now, IZ is all over that idea, which is why two weeks later and after much nagging he agrees to accompany me to the our local Cost Plus to pick out a slightly edgy, but not too irreverent Christmas card.  In the previous two weeks I’ve scouted out every option and have settled on Cost Plus because their selection seems to best embody my feelings about the holidays.  Picking up my first choice he says, “I don’t think Christmas Cards should contain expletives!”  To which I reply, “Why the BLEEP not?”   This leads to a rather heated discussion that finally ends when Boy Wonder pipes up, “I like these cards.”  Do we buy the cards the kid picked out?  No.  No, because the cards the kid picked out have pudgy little angels on them wishing you and yours a “blessed little holiday.” Oh no… there will be no pudgy little angels on the cards I send out.  I have an edge to maintain.  Don’t I?  No, instead we spend another 40 minutes shuffling through cards trying to make a decision.  We finally leave, exasperated by the whole ordeal.  You didn’t really want to hear from us, anyhow… did you?

So, three weeks into December I finally succumb to the holiday propaganda and venture back into Cost Plus where I buy two boxes of my second choice card.  It has a lovely, but edgy piece of artwork and a quotation from either the Pope or Mother Theresa.  No expletives in sight.  But upon opening the box I am filled with the overwhelming dread that comes with facing your impending doom.  How am I going to get these things filled out and addressed and mailed before the holiday when I haven’t sent a card in YEARS and I have so much back history to tell.  Do I dare write a generic Christmas letter detailing the minutia of our lives?

You know those letters.  You get them every year. They are filled with the joys and exploits of your friends and relatives.  Uncle Eddie finally scaled Mt. Everest with a bum knee.  Aunt Maureen lost 103 pounds on Jenny Craig and was hired to be a spokesperson for her local chapter.  Your best friend’s cousin’s nephew was elected President of his fraternity and then organized a non-profit that raised 2 million dollars to educate people on the benefits of wearing boxers instead of briefs.  Oh, and your Aunt Cynthia?  Yeah, she’s running for office and would you consider making a contribution to her campaign in lieu of gifts this year?  Uh-huh… those letters.  Could I really write one of those?

How could I?  I’ve just dropped off the face of the earth—I haven’t DONE anything.  Temptation sets in… perhaps I could just “tweak” our letter a bit.  “Hey, IZ, how would you feel I wrote you were elected president of your local Elks club?  Would I be going over the top if I said the vote was unanimous?”  To which IZ replies, “Um, I don’t belong the Elks… and I don’t think Christmas Letters are supposed to contain falsehoods, anyhow.”   This causes much consternation and weeping and tearing of clothes.  “How am I supposed to send out a Christmas Letter, then?” There is no reply.

And thus, for the past several years we have enacted this ritual and not mailed a card or letter.  We have lied to ourselves and said that Christmas Cards are so passé—we will send out a New Year’s card instead.  There is alcohol involved with that Holiday—so we won’t go there.  We tell ourselves that you don’t really want to hear all the grimy little details of our mundane lives—and so we don’t send out a letter and years go by.  You have no idea if we are even alive much less where we are.  Meanwhile I have quite a collection of edgy but not too irreverent Christmas Cards piling up in my office.  What’s a girl to do?

Why, summon up her courage and achieve the improbable. So here it is. Our Christmas Letter.  The unvarnished truth and expletive free since 2005.

In April, we closed on a house in Astoria, Oregon.  I’ll wait for that to sink in.  Are you off the floor yet?  It is a lovely, 1920’s farmhouse.  It was to be our back-up plan, the house we would move into after I graduated from Seminary.  Alas, it’s a good thing we had a back-up plan, because our original plan fell into the open sea and we found ourselves moving into our “fixer” a whole year early.  Despite the financial strain of moving and carpeting and painting a house in two months—it’s been the best move of our lives.  We are elated to be homeowners after 15 years of marriage.  There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t look outside at the river and say ourselves, “Wow, we live in Oregon!”  I know.  But Washington is right across the Columbia and except for on really foggy days I can see its banks and it reminds me that we are not far from home after all.

We came up in February on a whim and fell in love.  People ask us, “Why Astoria?”  It’s a fair question.  The upside of IZ working from home is that we can live anywhere there is DSL or Cable Internet.  So, when you can move anywhere in the world why choose this remote corner of Oregon?  There is no accounting for the movement of your heart.  It loves as it chooses.  And we knew driving into town that we had found a place where we could thrive.  I just had NO idea how soon it would change our lives.

We landed here in July and quickly set to work unpacking.  IZ had made several trips earlier to begin the painting.  Despite all his hard work exchanging 1980’s peach with an array of brilliant yellows—we are still working on trim.  The mint-chip green carpet was pulled out and we now are hanging out on cream-colored Berber.  It sounded like a good idea at the time.  The house is beginning to transform itself into our home.  It’s bright and vibrant and I try hard not to think about the critter that died in the walls leading down to the basement.  I try even harder not to smell it.  In fact, I have a new mantra.  I walk around saying, “It’s cold, it smells, please die.”  The last reference is to the gas stove that is failing—but not failing quickly enough to be covered by our warranty.  Despite all the setbacks and the requisite climate acclimation we love our life here.

Moving to Oregon has brought a few other notable changes.  The first was the arrival of Snickerdoodle.   She is a lovely cat we found at the Humane Shelter in July.  We knew she belonged to us when we heard her name.  We have a longstanding tradition of naming cats after food—and Snickers was perfect.  That and she took a hard swipe at the mammoth Maine Coon that tried to steal our attention.  It was at that moment we knew.  This is our cat!  She seems to feel the same about us.  Despite her aggressive behavior at the shelter, she is a gentle soul who adores every visitor to our home.

Oregon also meant a change in schooling for Boy Wonder.  He is turning nine this week and should have been in third grade.  But after the first week in our local school we realized we just couldn’t keep him there and expect him to thrive.  The curriculum was material he had already covered and he was bored.  The next logical step was to move him to the 4-6th grade school—but since Oregon starts its kids later than California, Boy Wonder would have been considerably younger than most of his peers.  We’re all for an education… but… yeah, we weren’t ready for that!  So, in a brave move for us we enrolled him in an online charter school where he tested into fourth grade.  He loves Science and Math and has a new passion for movie making.  He even puts up with his teacher who tends to push him harder in writing than he would like.  She’s a real pill!  The big bonus has been joining the local homeschooling group—where he has found peers and friends.  People ask him regularly if he misses public school and he looks them straight in the eyes through his long hair and says, “Not at all!”  He has embraced his new life and he thriving beyond our wildest dreams.

He has also left babyhood behind him. He’s into swimming and movie making and designing stuff on his computer.  Most of the time I have no idea what the kid is saying.  He has found a “stylist” in town—which means I’m no longer permitted to cut his hair. His hair is just long enough that the elderly women at church like to kid him about being a girl.  We are such cool parents; we just shrug our shoulders and buy him more hair product on the sly.  He’s finding his own voice and becoming his own person—we are excited as parents to see that happening. Except… girls are starting to notice him.  Evidently, they aren’t confused about the hair.  I’m not sure how cool we are about that!

The rest… the rest is just the minutia.  We won’t bore you with that. IZ and I both love our lives at home together.  In the New Year I plan to go back and finish the last remaining component of my degree (an internship) and he plans to whisk us away to some theme park in Florida.  But that… that’s 2006.  And you’ll just have to wait to hear about that in Next Year’s edition of the Unvarnished Truth.  Until then… we are wishing you an edgy but not too irreverent holiday season. May you always know you are loved.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 at 12:25 am and is filed under This Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.