Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Christmas Letter

As I have done for the last several years, I'd like to send a Christmas letter to friends and family.  Most years, I have no problem writing a fun and upbeat (I think) letter to let our loved ones know what's going on in our lives.  I'm having an impossibly difficult time writing the Christmas letter this year.

We attended eight funerals; including close friends, my husband's last grandparent and, most painfully, my own brother.  One of my loved ones has had six surgeries this year and very nearly died on two different occasions.  I have never mentioned it in this blog, but there has been a particular type of turmoil on two fronts that has been ongoing since fairly early this year and I don't see the situation ever improving very much - if at all.  After a tenancy of more than three years, I lost my condo's tenants and have yet to find new tenants to rent out my condo.  For the first time in our entire married life, my husband and I slept apart. . .this probably doesn't mean anything to anyone else, but it is a huge deal to me.

I am finally pregnant after 19-months of trying to conceive and, quite honestly, that has been the one bright spot this year.  After a solid year of sadness, sorrow, and frustration, God has blessed my husband and me with another child.  And, yet, there have been challenges even in this joyous blessing that still aren't completely resolved at this time.

I've been mentally writing this Christmas letter for weeks, but I just don't know what to write about this year because what I have so far reads like the world's biggest pity party.  I'm seriously considering just sending out a generic note saying, "Merry Christmas" with our latest family pictures because I can't seem to write anything that would be uplifting to anyone. 

Do you write a Christmas letter?  What do you write about in years that are remarkably challenging?

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