Here is my modern take on the annual Christmas letter. This will end up on Facebook where I “live” and most of my friends and family are there, or at least their kids are so it is my hope that everyone who needs to will see this.

What can I say about 2011? It was a pretty good year in a lot of ways, but as years go, it had its ups and downs.

Noah started the year preparing to take his First Communion and playing basketball with a team at the YMCA. Juliette was starting her second semester as a junior in college and beginning to stress about getting a summer internship.

Steve and I were continuing our same jobs, he working for CCT and worrying, at least at the beginning of the year, whether he would have a job by the end of the year, with budget cuts at the university. I was, and continue to be, still working as Mom and CEO of the Brandt family, as well as writing fantasy novels.

Noah moved from basketball to soccer, still at the Y, and we began to notice that he wasn’t as competitive as the other kids. He was content to have fun and play, but winning wasn’t as important to him. He joined another basketball team in the summer, and while we loved his coach who took great pains to explain the plays and the goals of the team, even going so far as to design a play that worked to Noah’s strengths, passing and blocking, after that “season” finished, we decided not to sign him up again for a team sport. His non-competitive, easily distractable nature seems to lend itself to less athletic pursuits.

In March, Steve and I attended a writes’ conference in Houma, LA, where we each pitched our latest books to an agent. She told me to try to cut 35,000 words from my book and contact her then.

I cut 29,000 and sent her an email in August. To my surprise and delight, she remembered me but said she was much busier than she expected. She suggested I try to find other representation and if that was unsuccessful, to contact her again in December. I did, it was and I will be sending her another email by the end of the year.

Steve decided not to contact her again because he feels his book needs more work that he has time for at the moment.

On a side note, our friend Jo Templeton also pitched to the same agent at the same conference and while she, too, was unsuccessful in getting representation, the agent’s words helped her plot the second and third books in her series and her first one was picked up by Crescent Moon Press, release date to be announced.

Speaking of Crescent Moon, I took a job with them as content editor. At the moment, I have three books I’m working on, but it looks like all three will be finished, or my part, anyway, soon, and I hope to see them released in 2012.

Noah took his First Communion on May 15.

Juliette started a book review blog, Paperbacks and Frosting, and while she didn’t get a summer internship, she is now finishing up one she got for the Fall Semester, with Paige Wheeler at Folio Lit.

Noah went to soccer camp this summer again, and took swimming lessons.

We did not go on a family vacation due to timing issues and conflicts in scheduling, and all of us have decided we can’t let that happen again. We need to take some time off!

Noah, Juliette and I did Vacation Bible School again this year, and as always, we loved it and it was exhausting! Next summer will be interesting as the school is undergoing major remodeling and it will probably interfere with VBS, as far as space and ease of movement throughout the school/church campus.

In August, my sister-in-law Elizabeth and I met up in Nashville for five days before school started. It was a lot of fun and we saw lots of touristy things and even went to a show at the Grand Ole Opry. We’re considering making this trip an annual event, although the venue will change.

Steve traveled a lot this year, more than usual as he has been given more and more responsibility as his seniority at CCT increases and because some people left due to the anticipated budget cuts which didn’t happen as expected. He went to Seattle twice and several other places this year.

At the beginning of October, my in-laws took us all to Shreveport to the Red River Revel, a big art fair. It was a lot of fun and we spent a little too much money, but we’re hoping to go back next year.

Thanksgiving was held our our house this year after two years of spending it in a condo in Orlando. I think just this week we finished all the turkey leftovers!

Our Christmas tree is up and all the presents have been bought!

I hope your 2011 was a good one and that 2012 will bring you all you desire, but most of all, I hope you receive all you need to become the person God created you to be. Some of those gift may be in the form of trials. We know that gold is refined in fire, and that the cross comes before the crown. May prayer for you all is that you receive joy and happiness and love but most of all perseverance and strength.

You are all my friends, but more than that, you are a soul God loves and Jesus died for. You are more precious than gold and were created in the image of our God.

For that fact alone, I love you. Not for what you may do or what you have done. Not for who you were or who you may become.

You. Just you. You are loved!

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to all!

Christmas EVE!! So excited. Tonight I have the privilege of sitting or kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament as Christmas morning (midnight) comes to Baton Rouge and the Central time zone.

However, before that I have to clean a little, make dinner for the whole family, go to church to hear people I love sing, celebrate at Mass, and come home to said dinner and the family tradition of opening ONE gift. This year, just those who will be getting socks and underwear will open a gift tonight – the eager anticipated socks and underwear!!

Every year my mother gave us kids socks and underwear for Christmas. The “kids-in-law” were eventually included in this. It may sound a little lame, but believe me, we looked forward to it. By around September/October, you start thinking, “Good thing Christmas is coming. My socks are starting to look a little ragged.”

Last year, after Mom died, her surviving children discussed the matter. As “matriarch” (oldest child), the task apparently seemed to fall to me. Was I up to the duty of buying socks and underwear for my family??

In the end it was decided that I would buy for my immediate family, and my sister-in-law would buy for my brother and herself. It struck all of us as just a little “odd” for me to be buying such “intimate” apparel for my brother and his wife.

In the Brandt household, we have a tradition. We open ONE gift Christmas Eve. This is a compromise that occurred when I joined the family.

In the family of my birth, my father was Danish (born in the US) and according to him, Scandinavian families opened their gifts Christmas Eve. We opened family gifts Christmas Eve and Santa gifts Christmas morning.

When I married into the Brandts, I was stunned to find out that although my mother-in-law is Norwegian, they don’t do this. Her mother, who we called Dina, admitted that in her family, they did open gifts Christmas Eve. So my father-in-law came up with the compromise that we open ONE gift Christmas Eve and save the rest for Christmas morning. That was fine because no one believed in Santa anyway, being all adults. I’m not admitting to my belief in Santa here publicly.

This year, things are little different. My brother and his wife are coming from Ohio and won’t be here until Monday. They’re going to her father’s home for Christmas then coming here. We’re holding the majority of Christmas until they arrive.

Tonight, we will go early to church to hear the contemporary choir (to which three members of my family belong) have a concert then we’ll stay for Mass, during which the choir will sing, too.

Then everyone is coming here for dinner. It will only be mac & cheese as it’s Friday and we’re not doing our Christmas dinner until tomorrow. After dinner, we’ll go into the living room where the tree is and the kids (my kids) will open one gift each. My daughter loves the sock & underwear gifts because she can open one Christmas Eve and not “wreck” all the surprises of the next morning.

I don’t know what the Boy will want to open as he still believes in Santa. But I think she’ll be able to convince him a sock & underwear gift is his best bet.

Some time this afternoon, the Girl is going to drive our Santa gifts over to the grandparents’ house because we’ll go over there in the morning and Santa has been instructed to deliver presents there.

Hope you all have a Blessed, Wonderful, Joyous Christmas and my the true meaning penetrate your heart and fill you will hope. And may you see a Christmas miracle!!!

I love you!!!

Yes, it’s been over a month since I posted anything here. I can’t believe I let it go so long. How many blogs that you read say that now and then?

Where I have been since 21 Dec? Well, we had Christmas, of course, which was nice. I got a lovely bread machine from my in-laws. It was label as for both Beloved and myself, but let’s be honest. I will put the stuff in to make the bread and all of us will eat it. Today I’m trying a recipe for beer and cheese bread, but it turns out we’re out of beer so I used some wine so it’ll be an interesting experiment. It’s baking now and I have to say it smells good, anyway!

For New Years’, we went up to Ohio to visit my family. It’s a very long car trip and we did it in our smaller car, a red four-door Mazda. The problem is that my van has become temperamental and sometimes decides just not to start when I turn the key. We didn’t really want that to happen on the road to Ohio.

We celebrated Christmas up there, too, and that was nice. Pepper got to get some bowling in with my brother giving her some pointers that seem to have helped her scores. My father was an amazing bowler and at one time considered leaving the military to go pro. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in a bowling alley while he bowled in a league and being sure that his ball had eyes because it always went where he wanted it to. The pins just seemed to explode!

We are now back to our normal routine, except for my short stay in the hospital earlier this week with a bout of pneumonia. Because of my kidney transplant and the meds I take for that, they didn’t want to risk the infection getting out of hand so they kept me in the hospital for three days, bombarding me with antibiotics. Everyone I know who has had this before was sick for weeks and weeks, but today I’m actually feeling pretty normal. Not tired and weak. However, I’m skipping my writers’ meeting tomorrow because I don’t want to push myself too much. I’m good saying at home, but going out for several hours might be too much.

Plus, all the family will be gone for awhile so I’ll have the house to myself. I can get some editing on Sword & Illusion done.

My friend, Karina Fabian, has a great idea for gift ideas for writers. Check out her blog here.

Is your shopping done?

I think ours is pretty much done. We’re going to Ohio after Christmas to spend New Years’ with my family, so I think we’re going to hit the after Christmas sales for a few gifts.

My inlaws, Queen Mother and Marine Guy, are coming next week so we’re cleaning this weekend along with a birthday party the Boy and Beloved are going to and HeartLa‘s Christmas party at one member’s house.

Then next week is exam week for the Girl, so she’ll be home early every day. Both kids finish up early on the 21st then it’s holiday for us!

What are your plans?

Life is so busy this time of year. Even when we try to simplify and pare down what we give, how we decorate, all that, it still seems that the Christmas and Advent season surprise us and we’re not ready.

At least that’s how I feel. I know that I should think about doing some shopping throughout the year, buying little gifts for people whenever I think about them or when I see something they like, but I never do that.

I never put food in the freezer for the holidays, nor do I do baking ahead of time.

However, Christmas always seems to work out. People never complain about the gifts I COULD have bought them if I’d thought about it. No one every notices that I didn’t decorate the way I wanted to.

Christmas is not about all that stuff anyway. It’s, of course, about the birth of our Saviour and our family remembers that, or at least tries to keep that upper most in our thoughts this time of year.

My father was Danish and my birth family had the tradition of opening “family” gifts on Christmas Eve. Daddy always read the Christmas story from Luke before we opened the gifts. Christmas morning was for Santa presents and going to my mother’s parents’ house for the big family gathering.

When Beloved and I were dating and we had our first Christmas as a couple, we spent it, of course, with his family (he was living with them). We went to my family later, but on Christmas Eve I missed opening up the gifts and as Beloved’s mother is Norwegian and HER mother was living with them, I appealed to her, asking if they didn’t open presents on Christmas Eve.

She said they did and my future father-in-law gave in and now we open ONE gift on Christmas Eve. Beloved took the tradition of reading the Christmas story and added to it. On Christmas Eve he reads from Isaiah 53, the prophecy about the suffering servant. Then, if possible, we go to Midnight Mass. I LOVE Midnight Mass.

On Christmas morning, we open gifts and have Julekake (a Scandinavian sweet bread). Beloved’s grandmother made it and I love it. Now that she’s gone and my in-laws usually travel down here, I make it. This year, we’re going to have, in addition to the bread, Jule-waffles. I’m going to try to add the candied fruit and cardamom to waffles and see how it turns out!

What are your traditions? How do you keep the true meaning of Christmas alive?

Check out the Contest page on the side bar there and see what all the fuss is about!

I know that most of you out there won’t be buying me a gift (but don’t feel that you can’t if the mood hits!) but you might know a writer (published or unpublished) who would love something from this list. I know I would!

Now, my dilemma: What do you buy for the person you can never shop for?

In our family it’s my father-in-law, Marine Guy. He is the type of person that just goes out and gets what he wants and that never leaves anything for any of who love him to get for the holidays. This year, he and my mother-in-law, Queen Mum, are coming her for Christmas, as they have every year since we moved down here. So, Beloved asked her what to get Marine Guy and we found out that he’d bought himself a waffle iron, is having it shipped here so he can unwrap it Christmas morning and take it back to NJ with them!! Something about only being able to get what he wanted at that one store for the best price or something.

Still, doesn’t it sound like there’s something wrong there?

What ideas do you have for something to give the person who never needs anything?

It’s kinda the same with Beloved. He doesn’t have much in the way of hobbies, except his computer and honestly, how do you buy a programmer something when you’re lucky enough to be able to add links to your blog? He used to ask for theology books, but he has kind of backed off from that for a bit. He’s heavily into his writing, almost more than I am with mine (no, no guilt on my part), but I have a ton of writing books so he really doesn’t need any of those. I always want to get him something really special, something he’ll remember and exclaim over, but honestly, every year I fail at that.

Oh, there’s that “f” word – fail. Sorry.

Kind of having a bad/depressed morning. The writing isn’t going the way I want it to (when has it ever?), money is always an issue, and my whole weekend is pretty much booked, so there won’t be much time for relaxing. And there’s the weight loss issue.

Anyway, this post is getting off track.

What ideas do you have for special Christmas gifts?