Holiday Cards

After you have kids, the holiday cards take on new meaning. You pose your kid under the Christmas tree in prim little dresses and suits. You enclose happy little notes about their progress in school and trophies from football. It’s one of the rites of passage for middle-class parents along with the carseat and the sippy cups.

Before I had kids, I always thought I would be too cool to engage in such cliches, but here I am printing out labels for our happy little kid cards and inserting our happy little notes. And it was fun looking for the best picture of the year (the boys were wearing grubby t-shirts and sitting on a rock in the woods). It was fun thinking through the highlights of the year and laughing at our missteps.

I also love the other kid cards that we’ve received from our family and friends. Everybody’s grown and smiling. The cards are hanging from a string on the bookcases in the dining room.

Here’s our effort:

December 2006

Hi all –

Another year. Another holiday note that forces me to rack my brain to remember everything that happened in the past 12 months.

Two years in our home, we’ve gotten used to all the cracks in the plaster and the missing rungs on the staircase. We’ve even gotten used to the ugliest brown bathroom in New Jersey, a bathroom best described by our home inspector as a cross between a “hunting lodge and a sorority house.” But for a paint-job in the office, home repair projects ground to a halt after we put on a new roof this spring. It’s taken us months to refinish a century-old front door we acquired from our neighbor who is a contractor. Perhaps 2007 will bring us new enthusiasm to tackle the kitchen. The avocado green appliances from the Johnson Administration really have to go.

Steve’s and Laura’s work responsibilities keep expanding. Steve’s still at …………. This year he surrendered to the Man and bought a Blackberry. He now manages a team of enthusiastic young guys from the Midwest; fine hard-working lads who lack drama. And Laura starts a full time position teaching political science at ………. College in January; very exciting. We’re very nervous about managing two full time jobs while keeping a close eye on the little ones, but it should all work out with a lot of juggling and take-out Chinese food. Or better yet, pizza.

The boys are great. Jonah has enough energy to light a small town. As one tee-ball coach said, “Jonah always comes to play.” We’re trying to channel this energy into Tai Kwon Do and soccer, rather than into “projects” with the neighborhood boys. He’s doing very well in 2nd grade. His favorite subject is history. He and his dad spend long hours talking about Romans, Gauls, and Viking hordes.

Ian is a sweet four year old, whose greatest loves are his trains and computer games. Though he’s had a rough time with talking, other things such as reading have come very easily. Lately he’s been singing his favorite tunes, “Yellow Submarine”, “Rock Lobster”, and “No Means No”, a jolly and appropriate song by They Might Be Giants. This new hobby makes us happy.

We hope that 2007 brings us fewer trips to the speech therapist, less time on a bus to Manhattan, more hikes through the Tenafly Nature Preserve with the kids, more adventures in the Ramapo Mountains searching for abandoned iron furnaces and mines, and more leisurely meals sharing food, wine, and gossip with friends and family. We expect to see you all at our old home with the ugliest brown bathroom in New Jersey.

Lots of love – Steve, Laura, Jonah, and Ian