Christmas 2023
As I sit to write this year’s Christmas letter, I realize that I have much to be thankful for. Absent among them is sitting to write this year’s Christmas letter. Nevertheless, it must be done or else Connie will be angry with me. Again.
I’m a little late with this year’s letter because I just had shoulder surgery last week. You may recall I had shoulder surgery almost exactly three years ago. That shoulder is doing just fine; this is the other shoulder. I don’t know how I did it, but I somehow managed to tear a rotator cuff tendon, and my arm has basically been dangling by my side making me even more unproductive and useless than normal. The good news is that I have now run out of shoulders to have surgery on; the bad news is that I still have two knees, two hips, and an appendix.
It has also been a busy year work-wise. I’ve been transitioning as slowly as possible to more on-site work and less work-from-home, but I’m enjoying the flexibility. I’ve also had to do more travel than I like to places far and wide, including: Lynchburg, VA (twice); Washington, DC; Las Vegas; Knoxville, TN; Charlotte, NC; Clinton, IL; Houston, TX; and Sheffield, UK. Sheffield is the only one of those that I would voluntarily return to. The trip to Clinton (which is not in the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from there) came with a fun little coincidence. It just happened to have been in Felix’s assigned mission area (he’s currently in Decatur), so we got together for lunch one day. He’s doing really well and seems to be enjoying his mission in spite of being on a mission. He sends a weekly email to whomever is on his distribution list, so if you’re not getting those emails then you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Connie just finished her second full year of graduate school to become a Speech-Language Pathologist. This year was particularly busy, because in addition to normal course work she had to put in a bunch of clinical hours. Next year’s schedule should be a little bit lighter, and she’s looking to finish by the end of summer. All of that, in addition to her normal job, kept her occupied most of the time, which keeps her out of trouble but opens the door for the rest of us. She also took some trips this year, including three to California. One was to Disneyland with the high school music program (she and I both went with Leon and Quincy as chaperones), one was to Disneyland again (with Dorothy this time), and the third was to LA with Ainara to see a concert and some sites. She also had a couple trips to Utah to see family.
Ainara? Who’s Ainara? She’s an exchange student that is with us for the school year. Because we needed more to do I guess. She arrived in September from Uralsk, Kazakhstan and seems to be enjoying life in the states. She got to experience her first Halloween and Thanksgiving and is looking forward to her first Christmas. She’s made lots of friends, and she even had a fun party with about 8 other girls for her 17th birthday in November. Quincy was the life of the party.
Calvin (remember Calvin?) has been living in California but decided that it was too expensive when he ran out of money. So he moved to Arizona, living in which, by remarkable yet unfortunate coincidence, also requires money. He’s close to family there—grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins—so he’s purportedly doing really well. In fact, Dorothy and I took a short trip to Arizona in August to see Calvin and my folks. There aren’t really any other reasons to go to Arizona in August, trust me. Anyway, we verified that he is, in fact, doing well.
Leon is a sophomore and is always busy and looking for more to do. This year he: spent the summer as a paid counselor at a boy scout camp, completed his Eagle Scout requirements, turned 16 and got his driver’s license, volunteered tutoring refugees after school, played the trumpet in 5 different groups (marching band, wind ensemble, jazz band, symphony orchestra, and the Mid-Columbia Youth Symphony) plus the pit orchestra for the school’s Mary Poppins production, competed in local and state school math club competitions (which included recognition at School Board meetings), worked odd jobs around the neighborhood to earn money, writes in his journal daily, and on weekends if nothing is scheduled he’ll have friends over to play games or whatever. Just watching him makes me exhausted. Oh, and he’s picked up knitting because why not?
Quincy is the anti-Leon and spends his time expending as little energy as possible. His favorite hobby is posting YouTube videos of … whatever. Check out his channel, King of the Q-Squad. He makes a little celebratory announcement every time he gets a new subscriber, so “like and subscribe!”. Quincy’s big news is that he turned 18 this year and is now a man, as he reminded us almost daily for months leading up to his birthday. For us it means we need to deal with issues like guardianship, social security, and some other hassles most of us didn’t have to think about when we turned 18. He’s a junior in high school, but he will have the option of staying there until he’s 21. We’ll see.
Dorothy is in 7th grade and will be 13 in a few weeks, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at her or talking to her. She’s tall, elegant, well-spoken, quick-witted, and doesn’t put up with my crap. She spends a lot of time playing the cello, playing the piano, and crocheting, all of which she excels at. She’s also heavily involved in Girl Scouts, was on the school cross country team this year, and is currently in the drama club at school. She also took the aforementioned trips with Connie this year to Disneyland with a few of her friends and to Arizona with me.
So Connie’s hollering at me from across the room about all the things that I’ve left out. She’s also hollering that I need to finish this letter so that we can still mail it out. “You’re not Shakespeare, just write it already!” Consider it written.
Merry Christmas! May 2024 be a wonderful year for us all.
The Jacob Family