For those that aren’t on our Christmas card list (you know why) I thought I’d share a bit of our goings on over the past year. First, a word from our 2016 holiday sponsor, “Aged 12 years in bourbon oak casks, Knappogue Castle Single Malt Irish Whiskey, making the holidays mostly tolerable for ye and me. Mellow and well-balanced…unlike your in-laws. Enjoy a dram over ice or straight from the bottle…drizzled with the tears of Christmas present. Knappogue Castle…your home for the holidays.”

This summer, the wife and I celebrated our 20th year of being locked securely, and blissfully, within the institution of marriage. I thought only crotchety elderly couples that smell of Vicks, Ben-Gay, and foot powder celebrated 20th wedding anniversaries. Turns out I can’t smell. Dawn is a thoughtful lass, and got me a 12 and an 8-year old bottle of lovely Irish whiskey for our anniversary. The gift was, and still is, much appreciated, her attempt to make me do math was not.

Dawn loves the holiday season, and spends as much time as she can wrapping her thoughtful gifts, baking goodies, listening to Christmas music or watching sappy Hallmark Holiday shows. Not necessarily in that order and sometimes simultaneously. I’ve tried to watch those Hallmark Holiday shows with her, but Dawn finds the chronic eye-rolling and frequent bouts of bulimia to be distracting. I just get so emotional.

Jackson is 17, and is a kind and caring young man that is begrudgingly, and not very attentively, attending to his junior year of high school. He had a successful tennis season last year, and we’re looking forward to quietly cheering him on again this spring. Unlike other sports, at tennis matches, yelling and screaming like a fowl mouthed howler monkey is frowned upon, rather you are to politely rattle your jewelry. Charm bracelets snag on my arm hair, but we all must make sacrifices for our precious children in an attempt to keep them from resentfully sticking us in a cut-rate retirement home that serves generic jello and cold coffee.

Sierra is thoroughly enjoying her junior year studying film and photography at Montana State University in Bozeman. She is a caring, creative soul that harbors great reserves of empathy for one and all. She has a genetic predisposition to wanderlust, and has scratched that itch this past year by attending the Sundance Film Festival, gallivanting around Arches National Park, exploring Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, and has plans to visit San Francisco in the spring. Sure, it makes a parent nervous having their child out in the world without their hand readily available for them to grab if things get unsteady, but I’m proud of her independence, and the lens of curiosity and caring that she views the world through.

The years click by so fast. Seemingly overnight our children have grown into young adults, on the brink of a life of their own. A life “of” their own, but never “on” their own, as family is a forever sort of deal. A deal where we raise them to the best of our ability, and in exchange, they eventually forgive us for our shortcomings, and begin asking us for advice…and get this…listening to it.

This whole “kids growing up and kicking ma and pa to the curb” deal is sad at times, but sitting on that curb together, after 20 years of chasing kids and careers, Dawn and I took a bewildered glance at one another, and seemingly simultaneously said, “Where have you been?” Thus has begun another chapter in this crazy book of life. The chapter where we ditch the kids and go on vacations or out on the town (sort of like adults). The chapter where the holidays become more about simply enjoying fleeting family time together, rather than a quest to cross the shiny gadgets of the year off of a list so your child doesn’t suffer any irreparable mental trauma questioning the existence of Santa and small herds of Rangifer tarandus that have magically mastered flight.

As for the old dogs, Pre and me are getting by just fine. We walk where we used to run, and are much more selective as to what we expend our time and energy chasing. I suppose one could call it contentment. Grateful for the work I get to do at Chadron State College, appreciative of the friends that call me a friend, and so very happy and proud of the family that counts me amongst their clan. May contentment find you and yours.

Happy Holidays from the Ellis family.