For those of you that aren’t on our Christmas card mailing list (you know why) I thought I’d share this year’s letter with you. I’m sure you’re thrilled. For those that are on our Christmas card mailing list (who knows why)…carry on…you’ve already ignored this once.

Here we are, jingle bells deep in the holiday season, once again. Round 45 for this elf. Ding…ding… time to come out and take a few swings before the swing slows to a wobble and you find yourself slowly twisting in the breeze with icicles dangling from your Depends. Kids, no matter what your big brother tells you, those are not lemon-mocha flavor icicles.

I apologize for the potentially melancholy and unfestive-like start to this installment of the Ellis Family Christmas letter, but we lost the angel atop our family tree this year. Grandma Rose passed away in August, and although we are all so very thankful for having had her in our lives for as long as we did, the holiday season is proving to be a bit more trying than I anticipated. I’m sure many of you understand, and I wish you strength as the nostalgia of Christmas on The Farm works its way around the string of cranberries and popcorn strung around your memories. I’m sure it’ll be alright, but it still stinks.

All-in-all the Ellis Family is getting along just fine. We’ve avoided incarceration, indoctrination, and remain diligent in the fight for truth and goodness in the face of alternative facts and flatulence.

When should you stop announcing the age of your children in the family Christmas letter? Not this year…Sierra turned 22, and is one semester away from finishing up her undergraduate degree in Film at Montana State University in Bozeman. One semester, and it’s off to wherever life takes her. Scary? Heck yeah, but we are extremely proud of this strong young woman, and have no doubt that she will find her happiness and leave her creative mark somewhere out there…near, or far, from mom and dad. Dawn and I can be strong in these shifting tides of growth and change, because our daughter is strong.

The Boy, is now a young man. Jackson is 18…registered with Selective Service, able to buy lottery tickets, a pack of Camels, and get hitched without parental consent. What else is there? He’s a short timer at Stevens High School, and looking forward to one last season of high school tennis in the spring. One last of a lot of things seems to be the theme around here. Ends are beginnings, and he’s exploring some options on those fronts. I’ve conducted some research investigating high school seniors, and 11 out of 9 wish that people would stop asking them, “So…what are going to do after you graduate?” I was raised by a good man, my father-in-law is a good man, and I feel that I know what a “good man” is, so I am quite proud to proclaim that our son is a good man, and I’m sure the next chapter in his life will be a page-turner.

Dawn and I are just fine. We both get to spend our professional lives doing what we love. Fulfilling, rewarding, and all those things that allow one to flourish in life. If you want to get personal, we find ourselves in uncharted territory. Not exactly uncharted territory, but territory that has not been visited for quite some time. Territory where the focus is shifting from the whirlwind of raising kids back to us. Back to where it all started. The kids are, and always will be, a major part of who we are, and what we’re here for, but the responsibility for wrangling the whirlwind is mostly theirs now. They are both quite capable and we are both quite proud.

This holiday season hold onto it all…the little bits…the big bits…all of it. All we have is each other and the bits of time we get to share as life pulls us this way and that. Our clan lost a bit in August, but we’ll gain a bit in May, and we’ll all keep moving along. Have a good year my friends. Health and happiness to you and yours.