The Christmas Letter 2012 (As Edited By Family)

Soooo... for those of you who do not appear on my wife's Christmas Card List (this is normally because we don't get a card for you but otherwise is through my omission) we present the edited Christmas card for 2012.  The unedited version was destroyed by progressives who are turning our country into a socialist state.

Well, it has been a good year to be a Becker.  Let’s do it in reverse order.  Mike and Sandy who are enjoying their time as “empty nesters” took Lily and Lola and entered them in the Westchester Kennel Club show.  The dogs did fabulously, with Lily biting several other dogs and Lola, who never stopped her sobbing whine, was given a Blue Ribbon just for leaving.  It was an awesome experience for the dogs and we have high hopes for next year.

Laura is in the midst of her 2nd year at Valparaiso, in what she hopes to be a 4-7 year plan.  She has majored (in no particular order) in Communications, Room Mate Abnormal Psych, Education, Communications, Bread Company Consumption and Business... and Communications... again.  She is currently Facebook official with a nice young man named Jon.  She worked up at Camp Arcadia this summer and worked in the Kitchen and as a server with remarkably little drama.  We are most proud.

Pat GRADUATED! from Truman with a degree in Psych.  It was approximately 117 in Kirksville on the day of the graduation.  The graduation speaker had expertise in human trafficking.  It was a hoot.  After making us very proud Pat decided to think really hard and upset his parents in ways we had not yet imagined and he has proceeded to Lawrence, Kansas to get his masters In Social Work.  A Jayhawk!  Imagine our family shame. He and Kyle have been together for going on 4 years.  Sadly, they both love Lawrence, Kansas.  Maybe it is the liberal politics of Kansas, who knows? Rock Chalk?  You never think it will happen in your family.

JON AND LYDIA GOT MARRIED!  Jon did the nicest thing he could have done for his parents by marrying the beautiful Lydia Schaftenaar and making her Lydia Becker. The setting (Camp Arcadia’s Chapel on the Beach), ceremony,  day and the weekend were all perfect and it was a storybook wedding that even I cannot be cynical or snarky about.  We  are so grateful for the many family and friends who traveled a long way to celebrate with us. Jon and Lydia purchased a house in Shrewsbury and are raising our grandcat, Henry David Thoreau ,and granddog, Schafly.  Henry is evil. Schafly is adorable. The Schaftenaars have graciously allowed us their daughter’s continued presence here and we are hoping they will be frequent visitors.  We couldn’t feel luckier that God brought our families together.

Sadly the first paragraph was a lie and Sandy and I continue in our jobs.  My life has been really tied up in a call committee for a new Pastor at our church (going on two years and people are starting to think that I am the problem) and Sandy really just works a lot during a big chunk of the year.  But is was a great year for us. Perhaps the best ever and as I said at the beginning, a good year to be a Becker. Tragedies touched several families we love this year humbling us and making us ever more grateful for the friends and family who never fail to be there for us and share our sorrows and our joys, but this year a lot more joys.  We go into 2013 feeling blessed with all of you by our sides.

Wishing you a blessed Christmas and 2013!

The Becker family,
Mike, Sandy, Jon,Lydia, Pat and Laura

Kitchen Konfidential

Soooo... I would like to make apologies for my long absence but I really would not mean it.  Much has been going on in the world, Europe verging on collapse, Roberts making a poorly reasoned ruling and avoiding type, Syria... but who really cares?

I am in Michigan on the first real vacation of the year and it is pretty cool.  Weather has been in the low 80’s at the heat of the day and I just thrilled to not be in the Lou.  I know i will return to a dead lawn, garden and (more importantly) blackberry bush and a badly torn up kitchen.  I have for Polish men working in my kitchen under the guidance of a woman who is the charicature of EVERY kitchen designer, supervisor you could ever imagine.  She is like the principal’s secretary in Ferris Bueller with this big smile and bright sing song voice.  

I don’t know how the kitchen thing got started.   In the end I likely have to blame my daughter.  She was home for Christmas break and we were getting ready to go out for our Christmas Eve Day lunch with the family to Blueberry Hill and she set her massive 103 pounds on the kitchen table to put on her shoes (because of course why would you sit on a chair) and the nice kitchen table snapped and buckled.  We cobbled the table back together but in retrospect it was that event which planted the germ of change into my wifes eye. I had held it off for several years with our families abject poverty combined with mentioning anytime it would come up that “my marriage is not strong enough to survive a kitchen remodel.”  I was and I remain pretty certain that it is true but my wife this time basically said that it was a chance she was willing to take.  So much for true love and 29ish years of marriage.

I don’t have any real opinions (or options) in regard to this.  I liked the old kitchen.  I am a Lutheran at heart.  We do not like change.  That too has likely  kept me married for 29ish years and you would think my wife would be more appreciative, respectful,  but... not this time.  It started with her asking me to go “look at” someone else’s kitchen that had just been remodeled.  When we went over the husband was naturally absent (likely having already been banished from the house with the restraining order in the post remodel divorce) and all I could say was, “this is nice”.  They gushed about caninets and sinks and stoves and floors and I said “It just seems like 15 or 20 thousand is a lot to spend on a kitchen.”

The room went silent.  Our host smiled and my wife looked at me like I had just taken a shit in the corner.  Then they both looked at each other and laughed and went on talking like I was not there.  As a great fictional character once said, “so it goes.”
There was about a month of stressed out selections for my wife.  She is...decision impaired.  She would call for my opinion and then be frustrated by my lack of one.  What type of marble, what type of wood floors, what type of counter, what type of oven/range?  Frankly my dear, I did not and do not give a damn.  So we have Aamish cabinets being made in rural Illinois.  Granite from who knows where and wooden floors made of....wood... but what type of wood and what color should they be stained? I did not know and did not care but I had no idea what I was being led into.  I understood it intellectually but did not, could not understand the amount of decisions that were required and the money required and as I stated, we now live with 4 Polish men.  During their brief tenure at our house our kitchen has been de-nuded of it’s former glory and everything else.  New floors have been laid, and stained.  Sconces (I did not know what a sconce was) have been ripped out to expand cabinet area, only to find that they were shielding plumbing, electricity stuff (wires and what not) and other surprises which would have to be relocated.  Ib the process we have lost plumbing, air conditioning and everything is covered with a fine sheen of drywall dust and sawdust.  Awesome.

They had been at it three weeks as of the time we left again for Michigan.  It was originally supposed to only take 3 weeks but do to difficulties which were evidently unforseeable it appears it will continue another 3 weeks.  We will be going home with our two sadly mentally retarded dogs and hopefully the Polish men will be kind to them.  In light of the recent developments and their tenure in my home I am reasonably concerned that I might need to provide them with health care.  Please pray for me. My kitchen will eventually not look like...this.

The Christmas Letter

Because not all of you are on the Christmas card list (wife does not like you... don't believe in Jesus...I don't like you... I am too lazy to find your address etc...) I thought I would take the liberty of publishing the Becker family Christmas letter for 07 in all of it's glory. The Davidsons are still not invited over for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Letter 07
Since wrestling this job away from a grateful wife last year I have been struggling with how best to handle this years letter. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. The family Becker rolls on into 2008. 2007 was, family wise pretty cool. We spent some time at Arcadia with friends, we went on a family trip over Thanksgiving to California, we got together with a couple of nieces one night a week to help fill up the table. We have adjusted to being a smaller family each night (that we actually eat together) and are wondering how next year will go when we have another spot to fill.

Sandy has returned to the paid workforce and regained her CPA license and we are extremely proud of her. She is working at Cummings and Ristow, some old Peat Marwick guys and is working on bank audits and perhaps bank taxation. She has always been the smarter, harder working one so it is with some pleasure and relief that I deliver her back to the U.S. economy. I hope it treats her well. The kids have handled the adjustment as we ask her to do everything she did before and now this too. She continues to have some kind of coordinating job is Community Bible Study and in an act of self destruction has also signed on as Church Treasurer as we try and figure out how to pay for the building we bought. She has also repopulated our second family by finding a sister for our dog Lily named Lola, 2 year old stray with no home, now has one. Lily is still queen of the castle but Lola is bigger and slowly starting to assert herself. Sandy spends an inordinate amount of time and money assuring that the dogs have no needs left unfulfilled. They generally seem happier and more grateful then our children.

This is Pat’s year to be number 1. He is a senior at Lutheran South. He makes great grades. He is filled with anxiety and and concerns about everything and everyone. Although he rarely leaves our basement where he watches Anime on various stations and works in origame he did see daylight enough to occasionally take a part in a Random theatre production. He performed in the Muny this last summer in “Les Miserables”. He is looking forward to a trip to Spain this Spring with his Spanish class and at this point in time is contemplating going to Truman University where he tells me has gotten a scholarship. he is enjoying his Senior year at Lutheran South and it should make for a nice graduation party. Pat continues his roll as the greatest blessing and the greatest challenge. Man plans... God laughs. Pat’s current Facebook status is “single”.

Laura is a Freshman at Lutheran South this year and has transitioned well from grade school to high school. She is on student counsel and played varsity tennis and generally had a good time and made good grades which are always a nice surprise. the majority of her time is spent at home in the basement with Pat (Beckers are all adverse to natural light and exercise of any kind) watching her brother watch TV and communicating with friends on Facebook. She continues to spend most of her communication time planning her next summer at camp, keeping up on camp gossip and inviting friends over to eat pizza in our basement and watch Pat watch TV. She is claiming an interest in ultimate frisbee but since it is in the nature of physical activity and she has a disinclination to run we will call that interest somewhat “sketchy” at this point. At last check on Facebook Laura was currently “single”. Stay tuned.

Jon... now relegated to the the number three spot in the family pecking order since his untimely exodus for college appears to be doing well. I say “appears” because we only see him if we can lure him away with gifts, vacations and occasionally a suitcase full of cash. he spent the summer working at Camp Arcadia in the kitchen and as a server and that combined with his rigorous academic schedule (I laugh even as I type the words) kept him away from home. Against all odds he joined a fraternity (Sigma Phi Epsilon) and is living in the house this year. He has a radio show on WVUR that can be streamed through iTunes, writes a weekly column (Becker’s Banter) for the student newspaper and generally seems to be loving life. We miss having him around, he seems thrilled to be out of town and happy to be missed. As of this writing Jonathon’s Facebook status....”single”.

I continue to muddle along job to job like an errant hobo. Life keeps providing me with opportunities and I continue to squander them. Still, when I look at the squandering it seems to have worked out really well and I am much blessed. I am currently (this week) a partner at the law firm of Hepler Broom and my partners have been very kind in allowing me to stay. I spent the last year and a half on “the never ending call committee” for a new principal at Lutheran South which finally concluded successfully. I did the camp counselor thing again this year and feel pushed to keep doing more in that direction but we will see what the future brings. Despite apparent setbacks, an over all osur disposition and a personality which veers towards lethargy, when I look at my family it is still pretty great to be me.

Outside of our faith our families biggest blessing continues to be our extended family and friends. Without all of you and your love and support being a Becker would truly suck. At every turn, each of us can look around and see all the great people God has thrown in our life to nourish and care for us and for this we are not nearly grateful enough. that having been said, for this one time in a year let us say from our family to you and yours MERRY CHRISTMAS and God’s best Blessings in 2008.
*For those of you who are keeping track my Facebook Status is “in a relationship”. I am trying to keep it that way and I think so is she as we get ready to celebrate 25 years together in 2008. We are richly blessed.