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

The Christmas Letter 2012

Preamble: I put this up because not everyone gets the hard copy. I do not know how you get on the mailing list but there seem to be 2 factors that allow it to happen.
1. Be in our 20 year old, fraying, address book which was inputted in computer; or
2. Send us a Christmas card.
Each year we are too busy to get the letter together. Between, writing it, picking the background paper, printing it, getting a family photo, ordering it and picking it up from Walgreens and then getting labels printed (neither Sandy or I really understand a mail merge) and then folding, stuffing and labeling 180 letters, combined with my wife's former need to write personal notes on some, make the process a nightmare. So every year it ends up being a hassle. While out letter was likely an amusing change of pace 7 years ago, now it even seems a little trite to me but, with no further apologies, The Becker Christmas Letter 2012!

Soooo...Christmas 2011. Last year Jon wrote the letter. It was too nice. As always with the Becker family...life is good and life is...funny. Sandy and I are finding our way being empty nesters. We miss our odd children. Both of our jobs are going surprisingly well and we continue to be blessed. We both do work relating to Banks... we don’t talk about work much. As is my habit, I come not to inform you of our blessings but to speak poorly of my children.

Jon is plowing away at BoomReactive.com with his partner Shawn Hautly. They make the web safe for social media marketing, web hosting, web design and digital media. I don’t know what any of that means but he has moved out of our house and followed my dreams back to live in St. Louis Hills. He is engaged to the beautiful and tolerant Lydia and all eyes will be on Michigan next September when we are all planning on a wedding. Lydia is mentoring for Lutheran Family and Children’s Services. They are very cute together and seem crazy about one another and we now have a “grandcat” named Henry David Thoreau. Historically we Beckers are not cat people. This must be love. Sometimes they play board games with us.

Pat is a senior at Truman and looks to graduate in 4 years with his degree in Psychology. Not even Abnormal Psych. He plans on going to grad school to get his Masters in Social Work. We cannot believe how well he has done at Truman. Apparently it is a really good school. Pat waited until senior year before starting to act again but has been in a few productions where in my opinion he has been brilliant and he has had a very good time. Pat still comes home, sits in the basement, watches anime and if I were to guess is still contemplating whether being a pirate or a ninja would be the best choice. Pat makes me laugh.

Laura...Miss Laura Becker is a Freshman at Valparasio who started out as an “Exploratory” ($30,000 a year) major and now will follow family tradition and major in communications and minor in business to be an “Event Planner”. Once again I don’t know what that means. She LOVES college, her friends, parties and apparently her classes where she tells us she is doing very well. Apparently it is none of our business. She has a room mate who cries a lot and has stinky feet. So far the boys have seemed to come and go. Once they get interested in her.... her interest...wanes. Laura lights up a room every time she comes in and now that she is gone I cannot bring myself to watch COPS anymore. Laura came home for Christmas, sat on our kitchen table... it broke. There is a reasonable chance Laura will take over the world. Be afraid.

Our dogs Lily and Lola refuse to die or run away though they do enjoy barking incessantly and acting sad.

So what are we to do? Really all we can do is marvel at all of our blessings as a family and give a lot of thanks as we look around at the kindness, tolerance and beuaty of our family and friends who support us through all this wonderful craziness. Whenever we are all together the whole seems greater than the sum of it’s parts. We close this year again with thanks for all of you. God is good. All the time. Have an awesome 2012. Our door is always open.

Brian Henneman Christmas Show/Awesome

Sooooo... one of the great regrets is, as i age prematurely and stay alive (against all odds) I am seeing less and less live music. This is sad on a number of fronts because I love live shows and it indicates the obvious deterioration that people who know me cannot be surprised by. It is not longer surprising me...which is also sad. For years I have been wanting to see Brian Henneman's Christmas show at the Duck Room. For years I have gotten finished with our families rather rigorous Christmas schedule and
decided that between:

1. What is the right thing to do,
2. I am very tired,
3. I do not want my wife irritated with me,
4. I am tired.

For those reasons I have always ducked the show which sounded like a festive thing. Henneman has fronted his band The Bottle Rockets for years since the halcyon days of alt-country when Uncle Tupelo tapped him to hold up the elctric end on their tours. He hails from the Festus/Crystal City metroplex and frankly...really tears it up. His band The Bottle Rockets did there best work a long time ago but he wrote and cut some brilliant songs with them over the years. Henneman has been a reasonably colorful guy around town over the years showing up and playing at a lot of other peoples shows.

This year my son Jon was in town for Christmas. Jon has always been bitter at the The Duck Room and their 21 and up shows which precluded him from seeing a lot of good concerts and tended to relegate him to the big rooms like the Pageant. He was blessed with seeing some shows at Mississippi Nights before they close but not nearly enough and then they closed. He has been in college and working out of town in summers so... he has not been home a lot to enjoy the beauty that IS the Duck Room.

As I stated Henneman has been doing this Christmas Show on Christmas Evening for years and I have never had the energy or motivation to go but this year...finally...Jon and I made the trip to U-City and saw the show. When we walked in around 9:30 the venerable St. louis "personality" Fred Friction was opening. Friction is famous for his former band The Highway Matrons and for running the now closed and lamented "Frederick's Music Lounge" down on Chippewa. Friction is a frightening tragicomic figure who is probably in his mid fifties but looks like a 70 year old heroin addict. He resembles a dark haired Iggy Pop and I do not say that in a kind way. Still, he was fun to watch for a little.

Henneman came on stage promptly at 10 and immediately tore in to the back catalogue with the old Bottle Rockets ballad of "Kerosene". A lot of Henneman's songs spring from the newspapers but this was a particular one about a Jefferson County family that decided that since they were out of kerosene their heater would work just as well with gasoline. Ooops. It was a middle aged crows and the place was about 1/2 full and there was a nice middle aged lady fan, drunk, calling out all the songs. He played a lot of the Bottle Rocket catalogue and hit all the high points over a two hour set including Indianapolis, 1000 Dollar Car and Sunday Sports In His Boxer Shorts. In the middle he strapped on an electric and tore it up on the first electric version of "Early In The Morning" that I have ever heard.

He then brought out a guy names "Steve" who joined him for a great version of the Old Crow Medicine Shows song "Wagon Wheel" and a few more Bottle Rocket chestnuts with Fred Friction on spoons. It was sweet. The show rapped up promptly at midnight with his classic "Welfare Music" and I think the whole crowd left feeling strangely and satisfyingly full on this Christmas night and i think my son and I might have a new tradition. At least for next year.

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.