Timeless
family features
Everyone has someone on their Christmas list who has everything they could ever possibly need or want. Maybe their Christmas wish list is so extravagant you know you could never possibly afford to buy them a pony, a new iPhone 4S and the new flat screen TV they have been leaving you hints about – hints taped as notes to the flickering TV you inherited from your inlaws newly refurbished basement. Everyone knows someone it’s impossible to shop for. My husband’s arms are too long. Well, they are just right for him, but they are too long for any shirt that I have ever bought him. I really can’t buy him clothes. He returns them. Always. Then instead he buys himself a do-it-yourself soda pop maker with 17 varieties of pop you can make yourself. My mother-in-law sees my need for domestic assistance whenever she comes for a visit, so I get an annual array of festive dish towels for our kitchen. My father-in-law has received about a thousand golf balls over the years, with socks to match.
Gift s
By Michelle Wegner
cried, they sobbed uncontrollably – major score for us and our talent for gift giving. Now, I don’t think they have watched that video since because they can’t quite figure out how to use the DVD menu, but I am sure it is locked away in their memory as the best gift they have ever received (aside from the argyle socks, of course). That same year, I uploaded, edited and scrapbooked the twenty or so pictures we used in the video for them, so they would have easy access to the pictures and memories if they couldn’t figure out the DVD. They cried at this, too, which led to me spraining my arm from patting myself on the back. We have really tried to be unconventional in our gift giving. A special tradition between Rob and me is the annual “Christmas Letter.” No, we don’t send it out to a 150 people from our address book. We send one to each other. We began the tradition in 1994, our first Christmas together. The letters are usually pretty mushy. Here are a few bits and pieces from our 18 years together so far. (Warning, serious mush.)
After the thousandth golf ball purchase, Rob and I stepped back to think for a minute. While on the golfing green, did he feel our love for him radiating from the golden glow of the golf ball as it captured the light of the sunset? Did he feel the warmth we have for him as he snuggled into his new argyle socks? We had to admit to ourselves that he probably didn’t.
1994
We decided to make gift giving personal. We gathered all of the pictures we could find from Rob’s childhood and pieced together a three minute DVD video. The song we chose to go with the photos was “You Are My Sunshine.” Rob’s mom used to sing that to him when he was little.
Michelle, I want to help make your dreams a reality. I want to tell you the truth even when it’s hard. I want to build our family together. I want to always be inseparable. I want to be faithful to you in word, thought, and deed.
I was 9 months pregnant with our third daughter at the time, so the family graciously offered to visit our way instead of us having to trudge to Chicago, hopefully avoiding a “No room at the Inn, birth-by-stable situation.” None of us will ever forget the look of astonishment on Mom and Dad’s faces when we started the DVD for them. They wept, they
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the family magazine | december 2011
Rob, you are a dreamer. Your dreams inspire me to live life wildly and freely. You have magic inside of you that draws the magic out of me. You inspire me to live radically and on the edge. What more could I ever ask for in a husband … 1997
We had a lot of time for mush in our five years of marriage before babies. The letters from then till now all have a pervading theme of tiredness, but lots of love and great memories. 1998
Little did we know Christmas last year what would lay ahead of us. We didn’t know we could be stretched so much, hurt so much, or how tired a person could possibly be. Little did