Merry Christmas From Our Family to Yours!

Our virtual Christmas letter (written by yours truly) and picture! Enjoy a blessed day with family and friends, celebrating our Lord Jesus Christ!
Christmas, 2009
I was just sitting down to write the Christmas letter when a loud pounding on the door interrupted me. Everyone else was busy, so I dashed to the front to answer it. Before me stood a wizened white-haired man, looking as antique as the clothes he was wearing. Somehow, though, I felt the odd sensation that I had seen him before.
“Hello?” I said, not sure what he wanted. “Hello!” He boomed. “I’m Ebenezer Scrooge.” My eyebrows went up, and I stared incredulously at the man, but he just grinned the widest smile I had ever seen, a smile that even stretched up to his eyes.
Somehow, not five minutes later, he was sitting down at the kitchen table, requesting tea, and chatting with me like an old friend. “So, uh, how are you, Scrooge? You must be taking it easy these days?”
“Bah, humbug! I’ve never felt better since I started helping people—since Christ changed me,” he said with conviction. “Do you know what I mean, my dear?”
I walked to the table with his tea and sat down. “Actually, I do. Mikaela and I did a piano concert in January to benefit the Caring Pregnancy Center here in Longview. We raised somewhere around $1200 for them—it was incredible to do and see God’s blessing on the whole thing!”
Scrooge smiled and said in his charming British accent, “How lovely—and such a spirit of Christmas! I wish I could have come, but I was on holiday, visiting my sister in Italy.”
“Oh, I know how that is,” I replied. “Mama and Papa went to Hawaii this year for two weeks to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary!”
“25 years! Well, Fred, my nephew, and his wife have been married for 166 years, but that’s quite remarkable for your parents! And who stayed with you while they were in Hawaii?”
I smiled, remembering. “Actually, everyone was stuck with Mikaela and I the whole time. We made it through quite well, though, and made a lifetime of memories!”
“You don’t say!” The old man said. “I’m keen to know—how are your brothers and sisters?”
“Oh—they’re doing wonderfully! Melanie was baptized this year at our church’s family camp. That was such an amazing time for her to testify to her commitment to God, and it was a wonderful moment! She’s sixteen, and a junior in high school. Susanna, the twelve year old, is as busy as ever, and this year she has really turned out to be quite the chef—she could cook and bake all day and be happy as a clam!”
“Well, where is she now?” Scrooge asked, glancing around. “I fancy a plum pudding!”
I smiled. “Oh, she’s probably off practicing violin or piano with Melanie, who plays piano too. And Micah, now he’s ten and he is really growing up this year! Camping trips with Dad, excelling at the cello, and raising chickens and goats with Susanna—he does it all! Jonah, our seven year old, just started the violin, and he is doing wonderfully with
both that and third grade! Right now, he is intently preparing for a career as a fire-fighter!”
“And how are your parents?” Scrooge asked, taking another sip of tea and grimacing, I noticed, at my American attempt.
“Actually, they are doing quite well! Papa still has his job at Weyerhaeuser, for which we are grateful! He also is an elder at our church, so he preaches about once a month. And Mama, she’s had some health problems this year that she has had to work through, but God has been good to her through all of it. She continues to home school the four younger kids.”
Scrooge nodded understandingly. “I’ve been ill some myself, but I’ve managed to beat that Ghost of Christmas Future so far. But you have not told me of you and your sister yet,” he said.
“Oh—” I paused to think. “Well, we are keeping busy with college—we’re working on doing that online—that is, over the computer, um—well, just think of it as we are doing it long-distance, okay? And we’re playing violin and piano, teaching music, and making music all the time! We have even started a blog this year, so we have had fun indulging in our love of writing, too.”
Scrooge seemed completely befuddled—the poor man had no idea what I had just said, so I hurried on. “And in June we went with a friend to Utah to receive violin teacher training so we could become registered teachers! That was a fabulous learning experience—we both loved it!”
“Wonderful, my dear, just wonderful!” Scrooge recovered, patting my hand. “Travel these days has just gone to the rubbish bin. Why, your United States is simply breathtaking!”
“I know what you mean, Scrooge!” I said. “We went camping in Winthrop, WA in August with aunts and uncles and grandparents from Papa’s side to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary! It was a Western theme town, so every day was full of hiking, shopping, swimming (it was hot!), avoiding snakes, and taking a horseback ride down to a cowboy cookout! God’s nature was stunning!”
Scrooge smiled. “I love to hear that! I know how much fun you all must have had together!”
I nodded. “More tea, Scrooge?”
“Oh no! Please, no,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “I really must be going—it’s almost Christmas, and I still have so much to do—turkeys to buy, Christmas cards to write to some ghost friends of mine… It was lovely chatting with you, though!”
“You, too!” I said, opening the door for him. “Merry Christmas, Scrooge!” I shouted as he walked down the snowy path—we’d recently gotten an inch of snow.
“Merry Christmas,” He shouted back, and his face crinkled in another brilliant Scrooge smile. “Remember the Christ Child, who came for this despicable old sinner! And God bless us, everyone!”
I closed the door on the wintry bite, leaned against it, and remembered what I had once heard of Scrooge. “It is said of him that he knows how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive posses the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!”
Now, back to my Christmas letter…
Merry Christmas!
All our love,
Steve, Jennifer, Lauren, Mikaela, Melanie, Susanna, Micah, and Jonah