An Invitation to an Honest End of the Year

The website McSweeney's Internet Tendency had a pretty funny post yesterday entitled "Snopes Investigates the Anderson Family's Holiday Letter," in which the fact-checking website analyzed an imaginary family's uber-happy annual end-of-year Christmas correspondence. The result was a brilliant paragraph-by-paragraph "true" or "false" or "mostly true" or "unconfirmed" study, substantiated or unsubstantiated by evidence the investigator(s) at Snopes had snooped out.

I find myself taking this same tact now that the Christmas cards and letters are showing up at our house. Actually, we don't get many letters anymore as no one takes the time to write them; instead, we're getting what seem semi-expensive, do-it-yourself, four-color published cards with a happy picture and some sentiment of the season printed across the top or bottom. There's usually a signature, but not every time.

But there are always smiles. Always.

We've been off and on in recent years when it comes to the year-end Christmas letter. This year, we didn't send anything, partially because we didn't get a family picture taken (or, I should say, we didn't get a family picture that we wanted to spend money to reproduce and mail), but mostly because it just wasn't a holiday hoop we were able and willing to jump through. Still, not wanting to throw in the towel completely, my wife posted the picture on Facebook and included the following update:

This, friends, is the best I could do this year. It's the only family photo we have of all six of us together from this WHOLE YEAR. And I'm pretty much out of steam, so I'm not sending these in the mail (and why would we, anyway, because...well, look at us).

2014: Good, Bad, and Ugly. It had plenty of each. I'm honestly thankful it is finally panting toward the finish line of New Year's Eve. I've never really thought January 1 held some magical restart, but there is something to be said about a clean slate and hope.

And it's hope that I'm clinging to for 2015. I lost it in 2014. And during this time of the year when the line to the mall parking lot blocks traffic on the main road and everyone wants a piece of the calendar, I sit here with soft music on and sleeping boys who are now home from seeing their parents for the day, still dazed and a little confused by all the caregivers in their lives and the constant transition. I hear my girls laughing with each other over a shared card game, and sometimes bickering because of a small offense, and I grasp to try to remember why we come to a halt this time of the year.

It's a baby, y'all. A baby who came to redeem the world in all of its brokenness and disaster and make it whole again.

No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.

Joy to the world. Joy to you...to me.

Merry Christmas

I tried to convince Megan to add "damn it" after Merry Christmas, but she resisted, despite the fact that 2014 was a brutal year of loss for the Dunhams - foster kids, Megan's mom, connection with the past, health, sometimes confidence, oftentimes hope. If you know us at all, you're probably familiar with some of this already, so if suddenly we sent out a "happy, happy, joy, joy" Christmas letter in December, it might seem a little disingenuous, which should bother you.

I would sure love to read more honest letters at the end of a calendar year. I roll my eyes when I see pictures of people smiling on ski slopes or beaches, and I'm bored with the braggadocious behavior that links the fact that God is good with the good time somebody had this year (for the record, God is good, regardless of your good time). Instead, I'd love to see a family picture in which all are somehow owning their dysfunctions. Or even better, how about some tears to go along with what everybody already knows is going on? Sure, talk some hope, but what good is hope if we refuse to acknowledge the life situation(s) crying out for it?

Maybe you don't want to come off as down or discouraged to family or friends (after all, that's what Vaguebook is for, right?). Well, even if Megan and I happen to be family or friends (or both or neither), please know you can send us an honest letter and we'll be glad - actually excited! - to read it. We might even pray for you as a family, which would be pretty cool because we suck at that, so think of this as your invitation to help our family's life of prayer rather than as your family's Christmas confessional.

You can email us your letter (cmdunham [at] gmail.com), or request our mailing address if you want to send us an actual piece of mail. Please include a picture (preferably not the Glamour Shots version) that's at least as desperate as ours so we can make the refrigerator photo gallery a little more interesting.

With all that said, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

(I was again going to suggest "damn it" at the end, but Megan again wouldn't let me, so just know that we mean it. We really, really mean it.)