God Bless Us, Everyone!

I went to write a Christmas letter but no matter how I approach it, it seems obnoxious. So I will just admit that mostly I want to send photos of Talia from this year, and also tell our friends that 2007 was such a great year and we’re just really, really thankful for it.

We’re thankful for our daughter. We could go on and on about this, but we won’t. If you want details, we’re glad to send them, but mostly she’s funny and cute and charming and healthy and what’s not to love about that?

We’re thankful for our friends.

We’re thankful for Pete & Kathy’s hospitality and friendship and generosity with us. We had a great time in Hawaii with them again this year, as well as a fun visit in Bellevue after Talia was born this summer. This winter, we are burning wood that was split in the backyard by Scott and Pete while Kathy and I went shopping for cribs. Evidence of their care for us is everywhere.

We’re thankful for Terry & Chelsea moving back to the ‘hood after many (too many) years away. We look forward to watching them do family nearby in the coming year, and are extra glad to have a nurse on hand for the medical questions and a cop on hand for back-up discipline!

We’re thankful for Mark & Heidi & Wade & Lael and our laughs and dinners with them. They have been great friends over these last years, due in part to Mark & Scott's shared love of Scotch and Alison & Heidi's great patience with them.

We’re thankful for the Purcells – our visits with them are so GREAT! and having Brynne participate in Talia’s birth and particularly pray for us in those first moments of being a family… what delight for all of us.

We’re thankful for Jan & Kate & Halia – they spent 4 months in Vancouver this summer and having Kate back was especially perfect for me. Sharing the last months of pregnancy and the first months of motherhood with an old friend is oddly wonderful and was an unexpected goodness.

And we’re thankful for Amy & Melissa and Karen. Our foursome still meets to eat and drink together several times through the year and it is lovely to see each grow into families. Now as Karen & Ross & Alex and Josh fight Josh’s cancer, we join them as best we know how with emails and lasagnas and prayers for healing.

We're thankful for our family photographer, Brooke. She is too, too skilled and has kept good track of our family so far (see here & here, scrolling down; also, the family photos on this page are her work!). That she is a good friend is a treat too. And our other Make-A-Wish friend Mandy - well, she has kept our T. dressed since birth by sharing her own daughters' clothes and she keeps me sane with emails through the week. So nice.

We’re thankful for our neighbourhood – 14^th Street is probably the best place to live in North Vancouver. Andy, Jolie, Chanida & Samuel are next door and everyday I am amazed to find them there again! We share milk and coffee beans and gardening tips and lawnmowers. We also get to watch God at work in their community of faith, and have a witness to God at work in our own. Right next door! So great…

We’re thankful for our fellowship of faith: our homegroup continues to be a great circle of friends. Scott, Margaret, Dave, Yvonne, Stuart, Adrienne, Kelly, James – we continue to wrestle God-life with them and are amazed all the time at the richness of a life of faith together. We have recently been joined by Mike, Jenny, Rob, Tamara, Dave and Paula and feel all the richer for it.

We’re thankful for our family. This year there were losses in our extended family: Uncle Murray died in June, Scott’s great-aunt Thelma died this fall and my great-uncle Colin just died in November. It is good to have the larger story of our lives retold through our re-gathering to celebrate their lives. It was particularly lovely for me to watch my cousins Kelly and Mike love their dad so well through the last days of his illness – they are living proof of our great heritage of care and compassion.

We are thankful for Shannon and Shiaheem both. Shannon remains my other sister and has enjoyed outrageous success in her work at UrbanPromise and is grossly underpaid :) . We had a great visit in April when I met up with her and Katie and we spent a weekend eating and drinking our way through Philadelphia. Shannon is a great hostess and is still family to me in all the best ways. In the meantime, Shiaheem is working his way into adulthood and took several major leaps forward on December 6th when his daughter Saniyah was born. He and Ayeesha are doing well by all accounts and in talking to him, I know he is taking fatherhood really seriously. It is a bit unexpected to be sharing new parenting with him, but it is the unexpected part that makes life so lovely I think.

We are thankful to have been able to celebrate Morris & Joanne’s 50^th Wedding Anniversary with them in August. They are wonderful models of teamwork and adventure in marriage, having just built their 6^th home together this year. Barb, Kenny, David & Caitlynn do lots of what makes them happy – driving for David, horseback riding for Caitlynn and Disneyland this year for all four of them. Brian & Anna remain great friends and cheerleaders, sharing their wisdom, coffee and dinners with us as often as we take advantage and their sons Matt, Dylan & Gavin are funny, clever, good-looking types we enjoy having around.

This year has been the year of new-grandparenting for Alex and Denise and so far they excel. They delight in Talia in the truest sense of the word and it is so wonderful to share her with them. They take good care of Scott & me too, and we seem to be turning into a Sunday Night Dinner kind of family – so nice! Katie and Jared came west to meet Talia in June and will be back again this Christmas to see what a difference 6 months makes. Katie is the best kind of sister, laughing at jokes and crying at the sad and sharing as much of her life with us as she can so many miles away. Andrew though, is only a few stairs away, living downstairs in the house we own together. He is proving to be an awesome uncle and shows up for “T Time” often. Talia’s first-grand-daughter/first-niece-ness is bringing out the best in the Caldwell family and we are thankful for that too.

This is a long list already and it hardly feels long enough. If you are reading this, know we are thankful for you. Thankful for each person who brings a taste of goodness to our world and reminds us that God is good and provides good things.

As you think through your own 2007, may you too be surprised by how many good things you come across.

With our hopes for more still in 2008,

Scott, Alison & Talia