Christmas Greetings

Christmas Blessings to You and All Yours for 2013 and our Best Wishes for the New Year.

Many thanks for the lovely Christmas cards, photos and greetings that have arrived from many of you. Please accept this letter with our wishes for a Merry Christmas and some updates on our family life as our greeting card to you and a sign of how much we treasure your good wishes.

We have had a much better year overall than last year but it does seem that life always balances itself out with a mix of hard things and joyful things.  The most joyful thing that has our whole family excited and eagerly awaiting 2014 is the impending arrival of a new grandchild.  It’s been over ten years since we’ve had a new member make an entrance and we can hardly wait.  Andrew and Geena announced to us a few months ago that they are expecting their first child in April.  And just a few days ago, we found out that our newest member will be a little girl.  If she gets a share of the good looks, intelligence, and delightful, compassionate personality of her parents, she will be just like our other grandchildren: absolutely perfect!

Garry and I have spent a lot of time this year supporting Garry’s mother, whose health has been failing since about February.  Several emergency trips to the hospital and at least two occasions when we feared she was dying were part of the winter and most of the spring for us until the decision was finally made that she could not cope at home anymore.  Mom and we as a family welcomed this decision and Garry and I took on the task of caring for Mom’s apartment, managing her finances, and handling all the paperwork and practicalities required to transition her to a temporary care facility in Winnipeg.

Once she was comfortably settled there and feeling more secure, the next task was to clean out her apartment and dispose of the furniture, make decisions about what clothing to keep and where to store it, and what personal items to store for her eventual transfer to the permanent facility that is her first choice. Garry’s sister, Hilda, came out to help with that and it really went quite well.  Now we’re finished with those tasks and spend a morning or two each week running errands for Mom or just visiting her.

With all of this going on and the uncertainty surrounding Mom’s heath for so long, we felt especially blessed to be able to celebrate her ninetieth birthday in October.  All the Manitoba family was there with her in the beautiful rooftop solarium at the Misericordia care facility and Hilda was able to come out from Calgary again as a special treat for Mom.

Then, in November, we celebrated another milestone birthday as my mother marked her eightieth year.  My sister, Monika, hosted a lovely party for Mom, her six children, and our spouses in her home. 

Despite all this work and celebrating, we managed our chosen travels this year also, although nothing was ever considered set-in-stone until the day we were scheduled to leave, as our feeling was always that everything depends on Garry’s Mom’s health.  We repeated our road trip to Texas in February and got to spend a few days in Rockport at the same time as my sister Monika and her husband Reid.  That added a whole new level of enjoyment to the holiday.  Rockport is right on the Gulf coast, near Corpus Christi, where we also spent a day seeing a few of the sights.  It was so lovely to enjoy sun and sand, long walks on the beach, and new dining experiences with one of my best friends and her husband.  When sisters are friends, you get a double dose of enjoyment.

And it was a triple dose of enjoyment in July when Monika, Mary, and I travelled together to Minneapolis for a long weekend of sister time, laughing, shopping, fine dining, more laughing, and more shopping.  For me, it was a first and I sincerely hope we get to do it again.

In September Garry and I took a short trip to Branson, Missouri and enjoyed it so much that we realized we had planned too short a holiday.  If we ever have a chance to go again, we’re definitely allowing more time.  We saw several shows, took a dinner cruise, and did some sightseeing.  We both fell in love with the beautiful Missouri and Arkansas scenery and definitely want to see more of it. 

I still really enjoy writing the blog, along with my two columns for our local newspaper.  I was delighted at the beginning of the year when ChristianWeek (you can find them on the Internet) invited me to write a regular column, called Good Counsel, for them this year.  I’m still always looking for new writing markets and opportunities and still working on that novel.  It always seems to be last on the writing priority list because everything else has firm deadlines attached.  My counselling practice continues to be very busy but, due to the stresses of the spring and summer and some decline in my physical health, I’ve had to reduce my workweek to only three days most weeks.  This gives me more time to help out Garry’s Mom and also a few extra hours to devote to my writing.

A special treat for me this year was to be awarded a “Heroes of Mental Health” award by the Manitoba division of the Canadian Mental Health Association.  They seemed to think I deserved recognition for writing a weekly mental health column in our local newspaper for the last five years.

At the awards luncheon in October, I met some people who are very interested in getting that newspaper column to appear in other Manitoba newspapers and I’ve been working with their public relations director for the last few weeks to see if we can make that happen.  And, oh my, is it ever a lot of work!  Hopefully, we’ll have it together for early 2014. 

Garry continues to enjoy retirement, running back and forth to see his Mom, and searching the Internet for new travel destinations.  He spent a lot of time in the fall cutting firewood; we have no shortage of deadfall yet!  We certainly are enjoying all those woodstove fires now in the cold weather.  Garry does a lot of technical support for my writing and my counselling and has recently started driving me to my out-of-town work-related events.  If I earned enough, I’d pay him a salary! When he’s home the dogs keep him busy and also keep him company when I’m at work or involved in church activities.

(As you can see, they work hard at it!)

Kate still rents space from us in the basement and continues to enjoy her career at EnVision, supporting developmentally challenged adults.  She’s starting to talk about moving out in the spring, possibly renting space from a coworker that she’s become good friends with.  That would be another big change for us in 2014, as we’ve become quite accustomed to having her here and will definitely miss her.  She treated herself to a road trip to Calgary in the summer and is quite intrepid, I think, travelling so far on her own like that.

Chris and Sandra and Emma are happy with city-life and their lovely home in Winnipeg.  They enjoyed a vacation in Arizona in the summer and have us convinced we need to see the Grand Canyon (not that it took much convincing). Chris and Sandra hosted our whole gang for Thanksgiving again this year, which was really quite nice.  We all contributed to the menu, as we always do, but they chose to do the main parts and produced an excellent meal.  

Emma is almost eleven years old now and so smart and beautiful.  She recently achieved another level in her judo training and is almost ready to challenge Garry! Emma is very excited that her new cousin is going to be a little girl and can’t wait to babysit.

Jenn and Dustin and family still enjoy their country life, a few miles south of Steinbach and only a half hour drive from our place.  Bradley, now twelve, and Zachary, ten, are in Grades Seven and Five respectively and both are doing well. The boys played football with the junior leagues of the Eastman Raiders this year and did quite well.  Garry and I really enjoyed going to some of the games, although I had to drop out when the weather got too cold and damp for my achy body.  Garry ended up having to see a lot of them on his own.  Jenn and Dustin continue to renovate and remodel many parts of their home.  They built an absolutely gorgeous kitchen this year and are still working on other parts of the house. 

We hope to have Thanksgiving there next year, as Jenn has had to miss her turn with all the upheaval in her kitchen. 

Jenn’s photography business, now housed in her renovated home studio, continues to grow by leaps and bounds.  She is specializing in newborn infant pictures and does a lot of excellent work with young families as well.

While our children have recently agreed amongst themselves that I’m getting too old and creaky (my words, not theirs!) to host all the family gatherings we like to have, they have kindly arranged things in such a way that I still get to have our Christmas celebration here.  I’m looking forward to having all my dear ones under my roof at the same time.  Next year we’ll have to dig out the high chair for an extra little person and that will be a treat, too.  We’re also very much hoping to have my Mom here in our home over the end of December and the coming of the New Year for a few days.

All in all, it’s been another memorable year for our family; life has often been very busy and many good things have happened as well.  I am part of a faith-sharing group in our church and the lessons and readings we discuss each week serve to highlight all the blessings we have to be grateful for.  Among those blessings, and appearing right at the top of list are all of you, dear friends and family.

In closing, Garry and I and all our family want to wish you and yours all the peace and joy of this holy Christmas season and send our best wishes also for a happy and healthy New Year.