MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Merry Christmas from the Kramer house!!

I was super slow at getting Christmas cards out this year.  I think they all arrived by Christmas day except for a few depending on how the mail service was.  I don’t think they were sent until Tuesday of this week.  That is really the latest I’ve ever sent them.

I think part of the reason I was slow is that it’s hard to write a Christmas letter when there aren’t all happy things to say.  Explaining to people that you have cancer and that doctors are trying something only has a 50% chance of working is not good Christmas letter material, but I’m a realist and finally put a letter together as I didn’t want to be fake, so, here we are.

If you’ve been reading the blog, the Christmas letter is nothing new to you.  You have been here most of the days.  You’ve heard most of the stories.  If you’re new here or want a little recap of the year, this is the Kramer family Christmas letter…
It’s that time of year again…time for me to write a little update from the Kramer’s:

Each year I wonder what to write and for the matter who to write about.  Our children are grown and out of the house it’s probably time that they all write their own Christmas letter if they choose to and some do…but, overall, they are still much of my life and no letter coming from me would be really about me if it didn’t include a little about them.

Life wise…I think we’re all doing pretty good.  All happy with our jobs.  Covid has made work more challenging for Kelli and Kalissa as nurses and Kayla as a teacher.  But they are all adjusting to the changes and rolling with the flow.  Kelli’s husband Jason and his family decided to sell their dairy cows this year and are focusing on raising steers and crop farming.  Buck changed jobs a bit this year.  He is a building supervisor and has been managing the building of two 30 plex apartment buildings.

Karl bought a house and he and I are only four houses apart.  The house is a fixer-upper that has been a rental house for several years so needed some updates.  Happily, most of them siding, electricity, and windows were all things he could hire out.

Both Kalissa and Kayla started Etsy shops this year.  Kalissa is selling printed t-shirts and Kayla is selling all things vintage.  They both have the bug that Roger and I have had wanting to have a side job.

Medically it’s been a challenging year for us.  Kayla’s son Jasper started out the year with tubes and landed himself in the hospital three times.  We’ve found out he has viral-induced pneumonia.  If he gets a cold it quickly turns to pneumonia. Later in the year both Jasper and Kayla had Covid but luckily that didn’t bother Jasper.   Kayla has had some lingering effects of Covid but is gradually getting better.  Kalissa’s family had covid…Karl did too.

Kelli and Jason had twin boys Eli and Emmett at 34 weeks along.  They are both growing and meeting their milestones even though they spent a couple of weeks in the hospital at the beginning. The boys do get frequent ear infections and are scheduled to get tubes put in soon.  We joke in our family that Kramer’s can’t grow ears and it’s so true.  7 or the 9 grandkids have had tubes in their ears.

As most of you know, I’ve been dealing with medical stuff as well. The doctors have been scheduling tests on me over the last few years knowing my cancer has been growing but didn’t know where it was at.  They finally found it in October.  It’s moved to my lungs and I have a small tumor there.  It’s sometimes able to be treated so we’re taking a shot at it.  I started oral chemo in December and have more medical stuff happening in January.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’m still blogging at www.joscountryjunction.com.  I’m still cross stitching and quilting.  If you check out the newsstand, a quilt that I designed is on the cover of the current American Patchwork and Quilting magazine.  It was an honor to make the cover.  I’m off from childcare as I go through my cancer treatments but plan to get back to that.

As a family, we’ve never been better.  There were a few years in there that Kramer and I almost dreaded them all coming home.  Before the day was over someone would snap at someone and feelings would be hurt.  They don’t do that anymore.  For one, with nine little kids running around, there is no time for that, and two…they’ve all grown up and have learned to appreciate each other.  In fact, as we were all leaving Buck and Lora’s house on Thanksgiving Day, Buck said, “^It is a great day to be a Kramer” and it truly was.

I’ve included a photo with this card.  It’s a chaotic picture taken that day with the grandkids all acting like their normal selves.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of all the adults standing behind Kalissa as she was taking the picture, they were jumping up and down making silly faces trying to get the kids to all look at the camera.  It was so funny.  They all make me laugh every day!!

We’ve had a good year and are looking forward to what the new year brings.

May you find time in the busyness of the season to remember what it’s truly all about the birth of our Savior!

Karl and I are making tamales today and I’m sure we’ll fit in a few rounds of Ticket to Ride…or maybe he’ll talk me into a new game.

I wish you a happy day doing whatever you are doing.  The Merriest of Christmas wishes to you and yours…