2024 - Christmas Letter

Christmas 2024

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m writing this letter having just left our daughter Ellie at the Missionary Training Center this afternoon. Forgive me if the page looks like it’s been wept on.

What an adventure we’ve been on as a family these past 25 years! From our marriage, as two dumb 24-year-old kids, to having three beautiful babies who turned into three sweet little kids whose pictures decorate the ornaments of our Christmas tree, then turned into teenagers, and now adults it’s been a wonderful experience– and it feels today as though that adventure has concluded in a way, and a new adventure has just begun. Our dear baby girl is on her way to Peru to be a missionary. It’s a milestone for her, but also a milestone for the whole family—a bridge we cross together, unable to see the other side clearly.

(Does anybody know if nostalgia is a terminal illness? I might need an ambulance.)

In light of this huge milestone, the other events of the year seem trivial, but here’s the rundown:

Kaerlig is 3/4ths of the way through her Master of Public Health program at BYU and will graduate in April. In August, she and Ellie went to Bolivia to help a US-based charitable organization called Yapay evaluate programs it funds there. It was a wonderful experience in which they both got COVID and subsequently coughed all over me when I picked them up at the airport. So of course Davey and I also got it. It was the first time for all of us. I guess public health professionals don’t practice what they preach? I don’t know. The entire US healthcare system is about to be helmed by a human marionette whose strings are pulled by a brain-eating worm, so maybe we should get used to these kinds of shenanigans. But America, we had a good run.

Rainer and Breanna are doing very well. Breanna is literally keeping the lab running at Mountain View Hospital in Payson, doing everything from light refrigeration system maintenance to handling the most foul and toxic of human secretions and parasites (making sure, of course, that all samples are labeled with the patients names). She also earned her second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do this year, so. . . she literally kicks butts and takes names in an official capacity.

Meanwhile, Rainer is making great progress with his studies at UVU. In line with his passion for the environment, he did a summer internship with Americorps doing wetland restoration projects along the lower Provo and Jordan rivers. For legal reasons I should refrain from saying the following, but it bears mentioning that if you are considering building a bunch of McMansions on a formerly pristine wildland, think again, the dude is about to snap.

Davey is also studying at UVU. In addition to keeping up with his class work, he has written a science fiction novel he can be proud of, and he’s working on another. He also keeps his 3D printers running nonstop and has learned to use CAD to design the objects he prints. His room is full of dragons and all kinds of whimsical creatures. He has also been able to make specialty tools and various scooter parts for me whenever the need arises. He still lives at home, the last remaining obstacle standing between Kaerlig and me and an empty nest. But we are in no hurry for him to leave; we love having him at home with us. Besides, I lived with my parents right up until the day I got married, and look how I turned out.

Before leaving on her mission, Ellie made a long list of things she wanted to accomplish. In short order, she did them all, including running a half-marathon. She was also accepted to the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at BYU this year and received a scholarship. You should know that Ellie is very prepared to be a missionary save in one capacity only, and that’s her inability to use other people’s toilets. In fact, even her own toilet at home was suspect. You know those disposable paper seat covers they have in upscale truck stops and motels? She made her own for personal home use. I don’t know what combination of arts and crafts and mental gymnastics it will take for her to survive Peruvian plumbing, but where there’s a will there’s a way.

As for me, I had anticipated finishing my capstone project for my Masters degree earlier this year, and I even walked at graduation, but I got stuck in a procrastination loop this semester and now it’s looking like I’ll finish in April. As part of my coursework, I taught ESL classes and also wrote a couple of short stories that I’m happy with. If you are interested in reading some totally non-autobiographical fiction about traumatized young men trying to come to grips with their dysfunctional fathers, let me know.

This might be my most conventional Christmas letter yet. The writing process has moved in the opposite direction of my usual custom. Instead of starting off with an irreverent and snarky diatribe, then paring it down to something marginally acceptable, I actually started with a very sentimental and ordinary bunch of treacle, and then I had to work to add some edge to it. I’m sorry. Maybe in about four or five years I’ll be back to my usual sarcastic self, but I don’t have the energy right now.

Merry Christmas. From the Hurtado’s