Our Christmas "Card" Tradition

For the last ten years or more, we have not sent Christmas Cards. I could never decide what to write in them, and could never "say" all that I wanted to say in them. And somehow just signing our names was not enough. So instead, we started something new. We prepare a newsletter titled THE BECK'S BOUNTY ANNUAL NEWSLETTER that is sent every year during the holidays.

In this newsletter, we summarize family and household happenings from the past year. Also included is a brief update on everyone individually - age, health, favorite things to do, activities, favorite books, and other interests. And occassionally we share a cute story or two as well.

We do this because we are unable to keep everyone up-to-date on our family despite our best efforts, so once each year everyone in our address book gets "the scoop". And it is also with this newsletter that we can express our love for the intended readers, to remind them that we pray for them often, and of course to wish them a Merry Christmas.

For many years now I have written the newsletter myself. But this year, each of the children participated fully in deciding what information to include. Each child also was the ultimate Editor for their section of the newsletter, and the older three children played Editor for the main body of the newsletter. It turned out quite cute this year.

So, the 2007 newsletter has been written and edited, printed, folded, and put into envelopes. The envelopes have been addressed and stamped, and are now awaiting for the last item to be inserted before they are sealed and sent out to our friends and our family.

And about that last item ..... along with the newsletter, we include a new group photograph of the children. As homeschoolers, we do not have school photos taken annually, although we do take a lot of snapshots. But this photo is special - it is our Annual Photo.

This particular photo (above) is from last year.

And this afternoon we will be taking our 2007 photograph, to be posted soon.

Sidenote: Just looking at this precious photo brings back so many memories, and I am truly amazed every year by the changes that have happened - in their sizes and little faces. My goodness, children grow up MUCH too fast !!