The Holidays FO' REALZ

Happy Holidays, everyone!  Ready or not, it is upon us.  :)  I sat down this afternoon to tackle Christmas cards and drafted a very lovely letter with pictures for all of our family and friends.  It's full of updates and well wishes.  The font is extraordinary and the line spacing is a true work of art.  I am sure everyone who reads it will be so blessed!  But as I look over it I chuckle a little bit.  It is indeed a very true picture of our family and a reflection on the blessings from our year, but it is oh so clean!  Part of me really wants to just send out something like this.....

Dear Family and Friends,

2016 has been a busy year for our family!  Kevin did some stuff at work that was good and important but most notably he grew a beard last fall and has now had it for an entire calendar year!  He's really settled into the role of a bearded guy quite well and we couldn't be more thrilled.

Michael plays soccer and piano and is on student council.  All this and we still can't get him to stop talking about Pokémon.  I don't know about you guys, but it's time for all that to Pokémon GO AWAY.

Blake got braces.  That was expensive.

Zachary is doing really well in school, but he's terrible at making his bed.  We keep thinking he'll notice, but actually he thinks it looks pretty good.  Maybe he needs glasses.  Those sound expensive.

We've been working on getting Parker to wipe his own bottom now for about 6 months.  He did fine with potty training, but we think he finally figured out that we're going to make him move out some day so he's digging his feet in with this one last stronghold.  It can't possibly be that hard.  Of course, no one can be good at everything.  Have you seen Zachary make a bed??

Kelly (that's me!) learned how to order groceries online.  It's awesome!  I wouldn't even care if everything they gave me was past the expiration date.  I DON'T HAVE TO GO INSIDE THE STORE!!

Thanks for being our friends this year!  You mean a lot to us 'cause without you we'd only have each other to hang out with.  To our family, well, you're stuck with us. 

Merry Christmas!
The Long's

....And the picture attached would look like this.

Oh that we might be so authentic!  Maybe it's not Christmas card material, but there is great freedom in cutting to the core of something, and I think from time to time we need to hear it from one another.  If for no other reason than to remember that we're all human.

I've said it once, I'll say it a million times.  HE meets us where we are.  On the top of a mountain, at the bottom of a valley.  Whether your holidays are shaping up to be a veritable wonderland of Christmas magic or Cousin Eddie's out emptying his sewage line into your storm drain...

GOD WAS.

GOD IS.

GOD WILL BE.

And what more can we celebrate than that???

MERRY CHRISTMAS, FRIENDS!

XOXO.....Kelly