Wyman Christmas Letter 2023

That’s a Whole Christmas Letter Right There

Maybe we should do two letters, because we often have the best stories established early on.  This year was extreme. By the end of Christmas Day 2022 we already had Chris engaged to Maria up in Tromso; Pops’s ratty sweater from Scotland in 1998, thrown away under family pressure in 2021 but “miraculously returned by Santa” under the tree in 2022; arguing over what color was Philly mort  for another sweater; Ben reminiscing on the podcast about the Advent customs of his childhood; Jonathan’s brothers finding a full-size R2D2 for his office;  Ben and Jen making noises about moving to New England.  Then in January we joined the Alaska Wymans visiting the Texas Wymans where they loaded up on varied Buc-ees merch and flew fifty pounds of Jollibees back to Nome for their friends.  We could have done a whole letter from those alone.

Engagement

So as above, Chris proposed to Maria Reithe and she accepted.  The wedding was going to be in the summer of 2024, but is now moved to 2025. He was originally going to propose while they were vacationing in Turkey, but this fell apart in ridiculous fashion and he brought the whole plan home instead. He almost botched the proposal several times even there – an Advent calendar was involved - but it happened. Chris went to Romania this summer to renew some documents and visited Casa Iosef, the orphanage he was at in 2000. Many people remembered him, and he face-timed John-Adrian (11 hour time difference) to catch up with as many as possible. They still call them Cristi and Ionut, of course, which is strange to our ears. However, the main adventure was Maria’s back home, as the youngest Rhodesian Ridgeback picked that time to melt down. Update: And then…they show up by surprise on Thanksgiving from Norway! We get to meet Maria and she gets her first look at America. So far so good.

Obsessions

Tracy has always had her obsessions, and David has always worried that these contribute to unhappiness. He now rescinds that accusation. Railing against her fitbit, which does not give her full credit for her steps and her sleep, is a solution for her, not a problem. Keeping her morning routine, including getting both the tea and the prayer list right, sets the world in balance every day. She keeps track of the natural history around her: she has both apps and FB groups for birds, fungi, wildflowers, Lord knows what else. A librarian is supposed to know everything, after all. This year she added Asian Jumping Worms, an invasive species destroying gardens. She researched the best methods of raining death upon them and counted her captures like Legolas does orcs.  She comes in, face shining, and voice excited. “I got 23!” The obsessions are in fact a source of joy.

South Shore Boy

Kyle has moved to Duxbury, where the very terrain delights him, reminding him of childhood in Barnstable. He has again landed on his feet (we sometimes worry), starting a new business photographing dogs, and now branching out into nature, portrait, and wedding photography.  He has a talent for it we did not expect. He has other businesses starting as well.  Very old New England of him.

The Only Interesting Facebook.

Most people’s Facebook accounts, at least in our circle, are pictures of cute kids doing cute things, plus great scenery and vacation photos. But JA and Jocie in Nome actually have good FB pages with dramatic things: hunting for caribou and moose, shooting an attacking bear, harvesting 150 king crab through the ocean ice, catching hundreds of salmon to be smoked, finding sizable pieces of gold with his detector, snow August through May, winning thousands in Las Vegas, cords of (Russian?) driftwood for his woodstove, Aurora’s desire for a surfboard to use in the Bering Strait, and Jocie’s running commentary on her life in Alaska that is avidly (1 million on TikTok) followed in the Philippines. Pinay sa Alaska. Aurora used to avoid the camera but is quite comfortable now, and the younger two, Quinn and Bella, have generally liked attention in any form anyway. Not to mention their usual aurora borealis - and 40 below weather. Tracy went out to visit with them at the Alaska State Fair in August and saw again that the girls are their mother’s daughters, carrying bags and bags of shopping. Like Jocie, Aurora likes to get presents for other people as well. She joined the volleyball team, mostly  in order to go shopping in Anchorage.  Yet it turns out she is GOOD at volleyball. They bought an igloo to put out in the wilderness and stay in.

Heidi is Finally Appreciated

We have always been Team Heidi, and it is not that no one knew how important she was at the church.  Those who knew, knew. But she now has two jobs there and people looking to her for direction – a mixed blessing, certainly, but it’s nice to be well thought of. People now ask us if we are related to her, instead of her to us.

You Got Travis Kelce For Your Birthday, What Else Do You Want?

Emily (16) has played previously in the family and (almost-family) fantasy football league, but this was Sarah’s (12) first year. She’s doing fine and learning that life isn’t fair. When the Taylor Swift news broke early in the season, Emily found that Ben had Kelce and said “You HAVE to trade him to me!” Ben apparently loves his niece very much, as he worked out something that seemed equitable  - that went sour on him immediately with injuries. My view is that Ben owes her little else this year.

The league has been an ongoing source of amusement for years. David’s last place punishment trophy was a crow (named Edgar) with a lightbulb in its mouth. Best trophy he ever got, and it is a porch decoration now.  Not many couples get to tell each other “Don’t forget to turn off the crow,” at night, which was the original title to this section.

Nostalgia Destruction Tour

If I had to do it all over again, I would spend less time thinking about how to do it all over again.

David is noted for remembering only the sweet nostalgic things about people in the past. Unless you step in to ruin it, he only remembers the nice things about you, rather like old photo albums or trunks in the attic.  Auntie Em! Toto! If he ever liked you, he still likes you and now tears up thinking about you. But the many reunions and his effort to contact people he had lost touch with did not end entirely well these last three years.  He does now have lunch with people from high school every month and has heard back from some surprising people. But don’t go to old haunts – strangers live there now! And some of us you have, um, not improved with age.  

Update: And I didn't even mention my hospitalisations for tickborne illnesses, which ordinarily would have been notable.