Greetings! My dear wife has asked me to write an upbeat Christmas letter to brighten December 2021. I am thrilled for this opportunity and will set the tone by recounting a recent exchange between the two of us.

John: “Why did you marry me if you don’t like any suffering?”

Maria: “Because I thought it would be so much better!”

 

Isn’t that lovely? I hope you can visualize it. I teach students that context is vital to interpretation, but we never know all we’d like to understand about the people, circumstances, and purposes of words from the past. I note it happened shortly after Thanksgiving; Maria would assure you that she only said that to make me laugh; she seems to think those lines don’t fully capture the essence of our relationship. I don’t really think she needs to worry about that. Do you? There are other sweet communications at our house regularly, mostly as Maria interacts with our little 2- and 4-year-old friends during the week, like, “Is Uncle John here?” or “Auntie Ria, please come over so we can have another birthday!” (a few days after the twins’ birthday). “Wait till you see this!” and “Get off me you fool!” are other adorable expressions heard lately around here.

First, some sad news. You may recall that Maria’s dad died in 2020; then my dad died this year. Keith was nearly 90, Paul not yet 81. Keith departed very slowly, Paul was taken with unexpected suddenness, a couple of months after a cancer diagnosis, and not quite six weeks into chemotherapy. I certainly felt regrets at missed opportunities to be with and learn from Dad, but we had a very good funeral and family gathering and Mom has borne her loss bravely, with help from Brooke (who lives in her basement apartment) and Hannah (who lives twenty minutes away). You may find it funny or poignant to consider that my dad’s last night of life included a TV mix of Olympic games and Peppa Pig, where he learned how his young friends, to whom he was such a faithful and friendly minister (even in pandemic), had acquired British accents.

This year Brooke finished a Masters’ degree in Communication Disorders. She now has more letters after her name: MS, CF-SLP. (Only the initiated can really explain their deeper meanings). She recently had her first “enough” moment as a speech therapist at an elementary school, chasing a first-grader who ran away from their session before it really started. It took a few months after graduation for her to get paid, but now she is a true professional. Like Brooke, Hannah is paid by taxpayers in a smallish Utah city, and she has wondered how long she will enjoy working for the art museum overseen by that city’s government. Nevertheless she persists, perhaps so she can flash her business card and walk into other museums across the planet. It’s unclear if Brooke’s extra letters give her any such perks. Hannah has wondered about graduate school in Scotland or work in a bigger city. She may want to leave the museum before Russian special forces descend to recover a large collection of Soviet-era art that mysteriously migrated to Utah in the wake of the cold war. Jordan and Hailey both work remotely, so the home they bought in Nampa, Idaho could theoretically be traded for an RV with good wifi. Hailey left her job in HR at a local manufacturing plant and found a “techier” position with a firm based in Philadelphia. It’s been a better fit, though the transition cost her a few days with the rest of us in Sun Valley this summer. Jordan has moved from managing online commerce to coding programs that facilitate and track online commerce. It is difficult to get a straight answer about what he really does and who pays him, but his wife and cats seem content. We visited them to watch Hailey perform in a community theatre production of Evita, one of our rare ventures into public.

None of our grown-up children have their own children to say funny things, and the cats in three of our four households say nothing, though they sometimes do amusing or annoying things. Cats are not verbal, but they are communicative. Ours sits on my torso quite a bit and stares intently when I am eating. She largely ignores Maria, evidently vying with her for my loving attention.

That’s our annual snapshot of Thomas family bliss in turbulent times. If you envy us, pray daily, go to church, and start your Christmas season when the Hallmark Channel does. There are other ways to remember Him always, of course. Whatever you do, we hope you will be still and find peace.