A Christmas Letter

I freely admit that blogging a Christmas letter is less wholesome than penning one to paper and mailing it to our loved ones (and, based on some we've received this year, such letters are also mailed to "ones crossed paths with briefly all those years ago"). And since even Dena's Aunt Marian now has a Facebook account, I feel a little more secure against the prospect of excluding those without e-access. And isn't it nice to be unbound by the amount of room on your refrigerator door or whatever your storage space may be for such temporary things? Self-delusion, check.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and/or (insert greeting that feels seasonally appropriate and not too diluted by political correctness) from the comfy condominium confines of the McDonald home! The two of us have lived in the Vernon Krossing association here in Normal for eleven years of married happiness now, which is a nice place from which to launch a few pieces of news about 2009.

One reason it's been such a joyful home is that from time to time we take in some marriage enrichment classes together and make some adjustments to keep in step with our own personal growth. This summer we sat in on two evening sessions at Heartland Community College (where, as a quick side note, I also put in an application to tutor math in August and am awaiting response... I just admire the whole organization and think I would enjoy having them as an employer and could do great things for them while fulfilling my God-given gifts!). And while other couples are no doubt ahead of us, we've been committed to weekly date nights ever since. It was also a nice opportunity to discuss openly and then apply some of the little things that spell romance to us, even as "small" as laying out a fresh towel in the bathroom or picking up a surprise snack from the Quik-n-EZ station on the way home.

As in every odd-numbered year recently, our furthest travel from the condo was to the seemingly eternally sunny beaches near Hatteras, North Carolina with the Freidinger clan (see earlier blog posts for more detail). In doing so, I tied the State Farm record for quickest use of an extra week of vacation... June 1 marked my first annual allocation of a fourth week of vacation having reached my 15 year anniversary with the company the day before.

Home is also where the art is. While Dena's continued to work in graphic design at Rose Publishing in Morton on a part-time basis this year, her free-lancing connections continue to blossom. One source has been her involvement in the local Kiwanis club, of which she's now been named Vice President and is en route to the presidency within a couple of years. Another is her proactive bartering arrangement with a professor at Illinois State University, swapping design work for advice on growing a small business, which has also borne the fruit of a couple of leads such as designing a book cover for an aspiring novelist. At the same time, with the owner of Rose Publishing moving further into retirement age and already residing out of state, Dena's been fervently researching the process of purchasing a business and measuring that possible opportunity. The art of acting may also become a little business in our basement, thanks to an introduction to voice acting course I took at HCC, and a master weekend crash course in Chicago (see the resulting recorded voice demos at an earlier blog post). Of late we've been moving around some furniture to accommodate a mini-studio space from which to record scripts and apply for commercial jobs such as telephone voice overs, commercials, etc.

If you live in a condominium and serve on the Board long enough, you start to feel as happy as the mayor of a small village. I've always loved close-knit communities (as my various neighbors from four years of college dorm living would attest), and this year was my seventh consecutive as Treasurer and 15th year of living here. I am the anti-homeowner, utterly allergic to home improvement and devoid of the fundamental male satisfaction of building or fixing things with my hands. But for whatever reason I've been blessed with consistent success in what's amounted to a contractor role for some major upgrades to the association, including the establishment this year of a brand new $25,000 timber wall along the driveway and $4,000 secure, sturdy, locking mailboxes that everyone seems to enjoy.

VKCA hasn't always been home, of course, and when Grandma Lucille passed away this summer we traveled one last time up to the wooded, quiet town of Wonder Lake near the Wisconsin border to see her laid to rest. We drove one last time past the cozy yard and the the lazy awning of the sun-drenched one-story cottage where Jack and I had spent hours smacking Wiffle balls from the front of the home plate tree, the plastic echoes and sounds of pounding feet fading into the rustic vastness of the majestic hills sloping upward around us. And the memories of Grandma as a loving and ceaselessly strong woman far exceed even those idyllic impressions (as the blog post recalls). We'll miss her and always remember her.

The condo used to be home to my old college buddies with me in my bachelor days, another experience worthy of some future blog post itself. And one of them, Ryan Short, got wind through Hidden Blog that I was pondering a coaching career. To make a long and frenetic story short, I'm now assistant coaching an as-yet undefeated freshman basketball team at Normal Community High School. Go Iron!

There's another way in which we're in as good of shape as any time in recent memory. Dena's remained active in a running club through Eastview Christian church, through which we've befriended another childless couple (almost as rare as the American eagle, in these parts). Unprecedented weightlifting and stretching routines have kept me on the field, including a dramatic ultimate frisbee comeback win against a league heavyweight, and also kept me on the court. And walking a half marathon was nice, but at my age not nearly as nice as a major-injury free year!

Our sitcom du jour has been "How I Met Your Mother." We watch it every week!

In all, 2009 was a year of physical, career and relationship growth for us. This time of year is prime for reflecting upon ourselves and our beliefs. I believe we've been extremely fortunate to have steady work and health this year, and have several reasons to expect some exciting changes in the one to come. How could we be thankful enough to our family, friends, co-workers and creator for all of this abundance?