Merry Christmas,                                                                                              

    WARNING! The following letter may contain offensive words such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There could possibly be an occasional reference to God (the one spelled with a big G), the Bible (the book that most people have and seldom read), and Jesus (the person… not the swear word).

   Furthermore, the reader of this letter could suffer from mild chuckles or possible sporadic outbursts of full fledge laughter. Neither of these has ever been known to cause cancer in laboratory rats, but that might be because rats don’t laugh. I don’t even know if they can smile, though I’m sure there has been a government study that can answer that question.

   Having now satisfied the current Christmas letter warning standards set forth by the ACLU… I would like to begin this years Christmas letter. The Robinson Christmas letter has grown in popularity and has a wide circulation. It is now read in several different times zones. These include Eastern, Central Standard, Rocky Mountain, Pacific, and of course Lunch time.

  Greetings to all…. Whether you are friend, family, or just a casual acquaintance, we look forward to sharing with you at this special time of year.

   As a parent, I try my best to keep the FUN in my dysFUNctional family. Amazingly it’s not difficult to achieve or maintain these standards around our house.

   This past year Lora, 13, our youngest came home from her grandmothers with a large intricate tattoo on her ankle. It wouldn’t have surprised me if her grandmother had walked in with the tattoo, but I was rather shocked to see it on my daughter’s leg. I was about to ground her for a couple of years, when she said “Dad, I drew that myself with an ink pen.”

   I was impressed with that information. “That’s pretty good work… if I buy you some ink pens could you do an eagle on my bald spot?”

   Sara is beginning to research the different colleges in the area. She is mainly interested in those schools with a high ratio of single non-smoking rich males taller than 5’6” with high moral character and a strong work ethic. There are so many kids these days that start college with no direction …I was proud to see her being so selective.

            Eric shocked us all when he brought home this chick to live with. He had the nerve to bring her into our house and expected us to accept her without reservation. When he saw the expression of discontent on our faces, he quickly explained that this was not as it appeared.

    “Dad this isn’t a chick…it’s a duck. I brought the duck home so that our dogs would have a pet.”

    “Or perhaps dinner depending on how the introduction goes” I replied. As the duck grew I noticed she seemed to have an identity problem. In the morning she would be perched on the barn roof like a rooster. Sometimes she would run up and down the fence line like the dogs. Often she would stand on one leg in the middle of the birdbath like a flamingo. After consulting an animal psychologist I came to the conclusion that the duck may have had issues with the fact that her swimming hole, which she sat in everyday, was a roasting pan.  

   Ryan graduated and married in hopes that he would no longer be mentioned in this letter. But, it just gave me one more person to write about. The newlyweds moved to Harlingen Texas. For those of you that don’t know…Harlingen is about as far south as you can go and still maintain U.S. citizenship

   Carissa is our new daughter-in- law. She’s a teacher. I think she’s a pretty good one. She has taught Ryan how to clean his room, do the laundry, and take out the trash. All those things we could never teach him.

   Rita won’t let me tell her age, I think maybe it’s because she is so old she forgets. She has joined a group called “small talk”. (Small is an acronym for Stressed Moms At  Long Lunch) Those lunches can go on for days …depending on the TASLOG (Total Accumulated Stress Level Of Group)

   If 50 is the peak of life… then I’m just inches away from the summit. This is my 24th Christmas at UPS. I figure by now I’ve delivered over 1 million packages. You would think reaching such a milestone the company would give me a golden back brace or hernia belt.

   During this season, people tend to think back, evaluate their lives, and seek to make improvements in the coming year.  I remember this year started with the release of, a Mel Gibson film called “The Passion.” I remember this because I’ve been told that I have a lot in common with Mel Gibson.

   Some people say we look a lot alike. Actually it was only my great aunt that made the statement …and she is legally blind…so maybe that one doesn’t count. But these things I know for a fact. Both of our first names start with the letter M. (most of you reading this letter can’t make that claim) Mel felt compelled to make the film. I’m compelled to write these words. After seeing his movie, people confessed to all sorts of crimes, including murder. After reading my letter, somebody confessed, “ if you ever write about me… I’ll kill you”

    Mel put up, 25 million dollars, a large portion of his life savings in order to produce the film. I put up, 25 dollars, a large portion of my life savings to produce this letter.

    I believe we both were motivated to action for the same reason. Our country is in a decline…a moral and spiritual free fall. There is an effort to remove the word God from society. An attempt to separate the Creator from his Creation will simply crumble the foundational building blocks of this nation.  With out a foundation on which to base our beliefs…. man is prone to wickedness. When something goes wrong in your life, the proper way to fix it is to return to the owner’s manual, the Bible, for suggestions. Nobody can force that on you… but it’s available when you need it. Christ was sent so that we could live and live more abundantly. We are to be imitators and not eliminators of Christ. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Aren’t these characteristics some of our greatest desires and exactly what our world needs?

    Have a marvelous and fruity New Year! Feel free to share this letter with a friend!

                                                         

                                           The Robinson’s

                                                     Mark, Rita, Ryan, Carissa, Eric, Sara, & Lora

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