Christmas News Letters Example 06

A year with some good points but no single highlight. One of the disadvantages of raising a family late in life is breaking old patterns, particularly the ones regarding time. Given you have to be somewhere at eight o'clock and it takes an hour to get there, when do you start moving towards the door? When I was in college it took me about three minutes to throw a toothbrush, novel and clean set of underwear into the bookbag, walk down three flights of stairs and catch an A/C Transit bus to the Greyhound station. When we married I learned to allow an extra five minutes for Linda to find her keys. With three children it takes even longer, but I still find myself saying "come on, kids, let's go to the park" at 3:00 and hoping to be in the car, buckled up and moving by 3:05. Ho ho ho.

Last July Heather went to a week-long Girl Scout camp in Pinecrest, about two hours from here. Check-in time was 1:00 to 3:00. I thought it would be nice to leave at 8, sail with her at Pinecrest Lake from 10 to 1, eat lunch and deliver her to the camp at 2:00.

By dint of tying the small boat to the top of the car the night before, getting up at 6:00 and following a schedule taped to the refrigerator door, we had the car completely loaded at 7:59, and were well on the way to setting a family record. If she hadn't reached back a little too far to get her seat belt as I was slamming the rear passenger door shut on the last piece of luggage, we would have made it. It only broke one little bone, and she didn't need the fingernail anyway. She spent the week at camp with a tiny, flesh- colored splint and emerged none the worse for the experience.

The most interesting book I've read all year was by Deborah Tannen, whose argument is that women converse to network, bond and establish a common experience, while men converse to make points by proving their superior knowledge or problem-solving skills. The lady who draws the "Cathy" comic strip summarized the book in four panels last summer. "Cathy" complained about a horrible hairdo in panels one and two, her boyfriend told her three things she could do to fix it in panel three and she concluded in panel four: "Men! All suggestions, no sympathy."

Best book I read to the kids read all year was "The Practical Princess", about a princess who gets common sense from the third fairy godmother who comes to her christening. When a fire breathing dragon threatens her father's kingdom she stuffs an old dress with straw and about a hundred pounds of gunpowder, has two sturdy village lads toss it to the dragon. Whoosh, boom, dragonburger. "Dragons aren't too bright", she says.

Kenneth will be [n] this Christmas. His mobility increased enormously since he grew tall enough to reach doorknobs. He speaks in complete (though short) sentences now, and we can understand him better than 50% of the time.

Margaret started kindergarten in September. She's learning to read. We found the book that tells the Cinderella story using just 43 words (it uses them over and over and over again), much to her delight.

Linda is doing three-day events on her horses now. The judging is more subjective than it is for endurance rides, and you have to dress better.

I set a personal (maybe regional) record in June; in a group photo of Margaret's ballet class, ranging in age from 4.5 to 8, I got all nine with their eyes open, and eight out of nine smiling.