The true story of a family year
By Ashley Walker (Contact)
Originally published 09:48 a.m., December 29, 2007
Updated 09:48 a.m., December 29, 2007
The “Year-End/Christmas Letter” is the annual holiday tradition that, for some reason, provides us a free pass to brag — ad nauseam — about ourselves and families.
Promotions, exotic trips, honor rolls, over-achievements, awards, piano lessons, dance lessons, singing lessons, sports camps, weddings, new houses, new babies, new jobs, new toys… These spit-polished monologues seem just a little too good to be true, don’t they?
Come on, where is the “real life” stuff behind these masterpieces of perfection?
Well, if you’re exhausted at the thought of reading even one more line of these works of folklore, perhaps you will enjoy the Walker Family Year in Review:
2007 started out like most for the Walker family — with the hope and promise of another memorable year.
In January, the newest addition to our family was 3 months old. We had finally made it past those exhausting first weeks of infanthood and were excited that — according to our baby encyclopedias — Will (and I) should start sleeping through the night any day — just in time for a much anticipated family trip to sunny Florida at the end of the month.
Departure day arrived and our family of five boarded the plane in hopes of trading in the freezing Kansas temperatures for some balmy Florida ones.
Surprise!
Our week ended up being the coldest week recorded in years for the Sunshine State. Our swimsuits stayed in our suitcases except for a few moments when we pried the kids away from their hot chocolate long enough take a few deep breaths and pose in front of the icy Gulf of Mexico. If you look, you can see our goose bumps on the finished prints!
It was the first time in a long time that coming home from a vacation wasn’t such a bad thing.
But on April 25, we did come home to a bad thing.
The three kids and I arrived home from school to a house filled with smoke and a kitchen nearly engulfed in flames. A gas leak under our oven was the culprit. I really tested my cooking skills over the next three months as I managed to feed the family out of a microwave and toaster!
Finally, school was out and we traveled to San Diego to celebrate Chris’ parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The week of celebration and festive family gathering culminated with a hotel-wide search for our four-year-old, Hattie’s, very-favorite-hand-knitted-by-grandma-super-special-have-to-have-it-to-sleep-pink-baby-blanket. Despite our Dog the Bounty Hunter determination to find the prized “Boo,” as she calls it, it never turned up.
Come July, we set out for the Knecht family gathering at our cabins in Colorado. Family from far and near made their annual pilgrimage to the compound, but someone brought one guest too many: a rotavirus. We blamed it on the littlest one of the bunch, but it didn’t matter. Over the course of the week, not one of the 19 of us escaped its gastrointestinal torment. We were forced to forfeit our afternoon mountain hikes for the bathroom crawl.
Just as the week was finally coming to a close, we got wind of some news from home. What was to most Emporia-area folks a benign Kansas summer thunderstorm apparently landed a small twister on our property. We arrived home from a week of infirmity to a personal-property disaster. Chris’ work shop was dismantled by the anomaly of a storm and our family’s camper-trailer was topsy-turvy, totaled beyond repair.
And just as the insurance headaches of a house fire and storm-damage were sorted out, I fell victim to identity theft last fall. From my social security number to bank records and credit card statements, the perpetrator succeeded at adding one final chapter in a year of a series of unfortunate events for the Walker family.
2007 came to a close much the way it began. Will, 14 months old now, has yet to make it through the night without waking up, I have lost nearly 1,000 hours of sleep (yes, we’ve calculated) and counting, and we’ve finally pitched our baby books into the burn barrel.
So, there you have it, Friends. 2007. Not a very glamorous year for our family, but one packed with memories, nonetheless.
Needless to say, this will be the first year in a long time we can say “Happy” New Year and really mean it. We will certainly be glad when it’s finally here!
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Posted by railroadhorn (anonymous) on December 31, 2007 at 1:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Better luck next year to the Walkers. We've all learned from your lesson not to keep personal financial information in storage at the office.
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