Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! As I sit down to write my annual Christmas letter, it is December 20, 2009, and my house is a wreck, I’m tired from power shopping today, I still have a stash of gifts in the car that I need to bring in the house, and I have yet to wrap any gifts. I have a list of Christmas activities and projects that I want to do with my children now that they’re on break but know that we’re never going to fit it all into 4 short days. I’m tempted to not write this letter at all, but cannot do it because it would break tradition, and to me that’s an important part of Christmas: Tradition.

When we began to decorate the house the morning after Thanksgiving, that’s tradition. And when we went to a Christmas tree farm to cut down a fresh Blue Spruce tree to put up in our living room like we did this year, that’s tradition (although it seems that our “traditional tree” keeps getting larger each year – 7 feet our first year, 10 feet last year, 12 feet this year!). As we bake gingerbread men, snowballs, and sugar cookies in Christmas shapes (that we have partially done this year), that’s tradition. As Christmas approaches and I begin to feel stressed that THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME LEFT! and begin to pull out my hair, that too, unfortunately, is tradition!


Luckily for me I have two young children who are just learning about tradition and don’t know about all the things that are in their mother’s head that she wants to do with them. Luckily for me I am sane enough to know that my spending any amount of time with them will be what they will remember next year, and not the litany of crafts they did while I tried to frantically wrap presents in the next room (which, by the way, I have NOT done yet, although I am tempted to). Luckily I know that there is always next year.

It seems to me that Christmas begins way too early now and brings with it way too many Santas. I think my kids have seen Santa 5 or 6 times this year already. He is EVERYWHERE! Halfway through December I just want to scream out “HALT the madness already!” All I want to do is to spend time with my family, sing some Christmas carols, go sledding, drink hot chocolate, and watch Christmas specials! I want to ENJOY the season too and share in the excitement and joy that being a child at Christmas brings. Instead it seems to be all about shopping and preparing and hustling and bustling, not about actually being in the moment!

And so, let me declare that said letter is my last gotta-do act before Christmas (besides wrapping presents of course!) and that for the next 4 days I am going to dedicate myself to enjoying the Christmas spirit that is all around me! Won’t you please join me?

Here are the top events that happened in the Byrnes family this year:

• January: Nicholas is indoctrinated into the art of ice skating. He is a natural. (Later to come in the year is skateboarding, then the announcement that in 2010 he wants his dad, who has never even been on skis, to teach him how to snowboard! This I have to see!)

• March: Michael’s dream trip to Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach, FL. This was the first time either boy had been to the ocean. Michael wore his orange space suit the entire time we were at the space center. Favorite quote of the trip: when asked what he thought sea water tastes like Michael responds, “Boogers!”

• April: Jeff’s robotics team makes it to the national competition in Atlanta, GA for the third year in a row. Jeff goes solo this year and drives down with two other engineers, bringing the flu with him. Meanwhile, back at home, Jen catches the flu and is down the whole time Jeff is gone.

• June: While on our yearly vacation to the cabin near Sleeping Bear Dunes, MI, Michael loses his very first tooth just two weeks after turning 6. (His count is now up to 3 lost teeth and as the other top tooth is loose he’s on his way to being a little toothless wonder!)

• July: Pukefest 2009. A nasty 24 hour virus invades the whole Wurges and Byrnes family. Nicholas and Michael appear to be immune, but after a week Nicholas gets it while visiting the Doherty family at their cabin in Harrison, MI. 24 hours later the Doherty family all come down with symptoms and then pass it along to another family while on vacation. Michael gets it too.

• August: While fishing in his boyhood spot near his home in Wisconsin, Jeff catches a 3 inch sucker fish after using hot dogs as bait.

• September: Michael begins 1st grade! Nicholas begins (and stays in) preschool! Mom finally gets a break and decides to spend some of her “free time” writing children’s books. Publication TBD. Michael becomes a Tiger Cub Scout with Jeff as his den leader and brother Nicholas as an honorary scout (look out Pinewood Derby, the Byrnes boys know all the tricks!).

• October: Nicholas turns 4. At his pumpkin party he refuses to participate in any of the games planned for said party. Instead he shuts himself in his room. Michael is voted into the Student Council!!

• November: Michael blossoms – he begins to take after his mom in her love for reading and his grandfathers in their love for art. His room could literally be wallpapered with the drawings he’s created this fall.

• December: At Nicholas’s first visit with Santa he asks for toy poop. Need I say more?

From our family to yours, we wish you a very happy holiday season!
Love, Jennifer, Jeff, Michael, and Nicholas (aka Stormtrooper)