My American Family

Christmas Day this year was spent at my husband’s brother’s ex-wife’s cousin’s house, which is to say, with friends.

We are as a group united by bonds of blood, law and friendship.  We have among us people whose ancestors came on the Mayflower and people who speak today with the accents of the countries of their birth.  We are Catholics, Protestants and Jews, some of us fervant in our beliefs, some of us equally fervant in our unbelief, and every form of questioner in between.

We range in age from eight to eighty.  We have children who came to us in every way children can come, step, adopted and biological, planned, longed for, and delightful surprise.  We have children who make us unbearably proud and children we worry about everyday.  Sometimes they are the same children.

This year we marked two deaths, four major illnesses, three surgeries, a divorce and two marriages.  On Christmas day, two couples no longer together smiled and treated each other with grace because their love for their children comes before their own pain.

This is my American family.  We are pale, ruddy, olive-skinned and brown.  We are blonde, red-headed, brown, black, white and gray-haired. For the last eight years this kind of big, messy stew has felt invisible, almost impossible in the onslaught of messages about things that should divide us, make us all one thing or another, push our differences in and our common humanity out. 

Yet all along, we have known it wasn’t so and gone on.

With hope for the future.  Happy New Year to all.

Barb

The Christmas Letter

This year without apologies–

 

Dear Family and Friends,

 

Happy Holidays to all!  In New England, we are in that awful snow/rain/sleet cycle that leaves everything treacherous and ugly.  We’ve tried to warm it up by hanging lots of outdoor Christmas lights.  I do love seeing them when I come up the street on these dark, dark days.

We are all well.  Kate survived both a layoff and an apartment disaster (toxic mold!) and has managed to land on her feet in both cases.  She is now the executive assistant to the publisher of O, The Oprah Magazine (see Kate’s name on the masthead!), and is living in TriBeCa.  I always explain to people that Kate has the Ugly Betty job, not The Devil Wears Prada job, because she works for the publisher, not the editor.  Also, she reports her boss is very nice.

Rob is still production manager at Leaders magazine (see his name also on the masthead!), so both the children are, as eight year-old nephew calls them, “magaziners.”  Rob is still living in Brooklyn, and one of the benefits for Bill and I is we have really gotten to know Brooklyn better—great restaurants and shops, museum and botanical gardens.

Bill is working hard at his company, Sage Systems.  I must say, he has taken the Red Sox victory entirely in stride (“Once a curse is broken, it’s broken.”) and has moved seamlessly on to football season and the Patriots.

I am coming off my infamous year off, and what a wonderful year it has been.  I actually get compliments about how good I am at taking time off.  (For anyone who wants lessons, write me!)  Some highlights of the full year included a writing seminar on Star Island, a small rock off the coast of New Hampshire, two visits to Key West, two fun long weekends in New York City, a wonderful week at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and capping it all off, a fantastic trip to Italy.  Bill and I revisited Rome and the Amalfi Coast and then went to Sorrento, Pompeii and Capri.  Honestly, it was difficult to come home.

The extended family is well.  Next August, Rip and Ann’s son Hume will become the first member of his generation to tie the knot, so we are all happy and excited about that.  His sister Julia graduated from high school this spring and is at Connecticut College.  Carl and Eliana’s daughter Christelle also graduated this spring and is attending Mass Bay.

As always, we hope this letter finds you well and enjoying the spirit of the season.  We close, for the sixth year in a row, with hopes for peace.

Bill & Barb