The 2008 Thomas Christmas letter

Christmas 2008
Another leap year gallops to a close. It's been eventful, with Wall Street crashing, Mormon bashing, China's Olympic gambit, and America's first president of color. Yes we can! We're grateful to live in a peaceful place, work at a stimulating job, and laugh with children who sometimes mock us but otherwise behave well. The other night, Jordan actually let us meet his date, so perhaps we aren't social lepers after all.

There was no big family trip this year; hardly any vacation at all, in fact. But when you live in a cosmopolitan place like Rexburg, why go anywhere else? Within the city limits, one can sample the tastes of Thailand, Italy, Mexico, and Kentucky, not to mention underground sandwiches. Recently I had a hot dog named after Alabama--something with coleslaw and chili and onions--and it was tasty. All that and a spray park too! (For two months of the year.)

Maria's year was the best yet. She loves the thrill of the hunt when the coupons come out, dueling with corporate retail giants. She dominates PTO. She sublimates with chocolate. She stirs things up at the Homestead, challenging people twice her age to battles of wits. She also challenges her son (less than halfher age) to battles of wits. I think she should sit on him, thump his sternum, and muss his hair. She can leap the cats in a single bound or two. Pursuing the simple life, she made only seven pies at Thanksgiving and considered parting with two Christmas ornaments.

In high school, Brooke was called a "grammar Nazi." In college, she found a way to reprise that role. Be careful what you say around English Language majors, and even more careful about how you says it. Any conversation constitutes fieldwork, complete with jottings in a notebook, and she can dissect your dialect and detect all the ways you strayed from the mother tongue. You haven't lived until you've explored periphrastic verb constructions or alveolar fricatives. And yet
she still can't finish a crossword puzzle, understand her siblings, or fix a hi-fi. Inspired by her Dad, she and her roommate hiked up to the big white Y above BYU. She claims it hurt when she fell down while descending the mountain. Please. Try having a kidney stone sometime.

I was going to mention my own achievements, but they go without saying (or doing). Currently I teach more American history, economics, and politics than religion. This is good, as it gives a ready excuse for being uninspiring. Also, I don't have to pretend to be nice as much, especially once we talk about markets. At church I went from working with nursery kids to working with fine old high priests, which oddly enough seems a smooth transition. I intend to be the last man on earth without a cell phone, but I did create a blog of sorts. To see my socio-cultural review of the year's events, visit the blog, "But something always does," which is named after a song lyric original to the Thomas family.

To update you on Hannah, read the last couple of years, and add hormones. (You do have our previous Christmas letters on file, don't you?) At 15, she dances and flirts with college students, which makes her feel mature, even though it's just weird. She claims her sister's reputation for flirting lingers at the high school, but I am dubious. It must be liberating to talk to boys when you don't date before 16. She sighed and screamed and fawned over Pharaoh and Conrad Birdie in two different plays, adding a combat crawl for Birdie. Despite the damage to her larynx, she sang a lovely solo at a concert of the high school women's choir. She wears a lightweightjacket from her dance team on subfreezing mornings so that she can look good while her core temperature drops. Raw carrots and ice cream dominate her diet. She loves a bowl of blueberries for breakfast, but wants only chocolate chips in pancakes. Go figure. I have warned her that too much grimacing may turn her into a gargoyle.

Things were different with Jordan after he got back from Mexico and Guatemala and Belize. How different? Well, he got a different job at a downtown craft store. He hates having to work on the days he's scheduled-a shocking contrast to his old job taking phone surveys. He claims that the craft store environment has skewed his gender identity, but the other moms are jealous. After all, Maria sometimes gets a discount or a surprise gift (such as garden gnomes, ceramic vermin, or even a nice baker's rack), he looks good in the maroon polo, and he's saving money for a mission. He became a full-time college student in the fall, but doesn't seem to believe that higher education is actually a full-time endeavor. He frequently claims that it's too easy for him, and then grumbles about inscrutable teachers and impossible assignments.

Every Sunday we sing with another family and sometimes some of Hannah's friends at the Homestead. It's intended as pre-dinner entertainment (hymns and folk songs), but sometimes they serve the food before we get started. Luckily, no one has choked on dinner while listening or lost their meal. We cap things off with the old-timey jingle, "You are my Sunshine." All the residents like it and sing along, but 94-year old Robert loves it best, despite (or thanks to) being hard of hearing. It puzzles us how such an upbeat tune can have such depressing lyrics.

No such problem with Christmas songs: Hark! the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King! Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her King! Peace on earth, good-will to men! Happy Holidays from the Thomas family.