Our holiday letter

I am once again foregoing holiday cards. But here's the letter I would have included had I been sending them out, with the added bonus of links to more details.



"Let the unexpected changes of 2009 commence!"
Ronnie the Fate Tempter
January 9, 2009

Dear family and friends,

Holiday greetings from the Maier family! I'm sitting here, listening to the rain, thinking back over a challenging and amazing year and feeling glad so many of you were a part of it.

We started the year with both girls away from home, something that happens more and more as they get older, due in no small part to the fact that our unschooling lifestyle has led to our having friends all over the country. This time it was the Santa Cruz area, south of San Francisco, where they celebrated the arrival of the New Year at friend Harper's. Chloe (15) came home with bus-driver Frank soon after (he spent the interim sailing and having some alone time), but MJ (17) stayed forever, or so it felt to me at the time. She did some camping and learned to shoot large guns. Yes, really.

And then we hit a sad note with the death of Frank's dad, Marty. He had been pretty frail for a while and just sort of faded away, fortunately with all of his kids by his side. The girls and I joined Frank in New Orleans for the funeral, and Frank's brother Chuck's family came into town from Houston, too. It was a huge comfort to have the whole family together.

We got home and immediately (and I do mean immediately) learned that I had been laid off from my shiny new job at Microsoft. And thus we discovered that grief and stress really do not go well together.

Compared to those tough times, the rest of the year has been a lark!

After six years as an unschooler, Chloe decided to give the local high school a whirl. She took a variety of classes, ranging from guitar and drama to Algebra and science. It only took her a couple of weeks to get what she wanted out of the deal (mostly the assurance that (1) she can excel in school if she wants to, and (2) she hasn't been missing anything she cares about very much), but she chose to stay and complete the six-week grading period. Then, in true unschooler fashion, she promptly flew to Georgia to hang out with friends.

But before that, some other friends came to visit. This set a pattern for the year: we have had unschoolers here just about every month, and if we didn't, it was because we went to them. In fact, Frank and I just thought it through, and some number of us "went to them" in every month except February. We're ending the year in kind, with MJ and me just back from a visit to Vancouver Island and the girls planning to spend New Year's Eve in Salem, Oregon.

But we can stop anytime we want. Really.

It's been a big year for conferences. In April, a much-altered Chloe and I attended Sakura Con, Seattle's annual anime and manga convention. May brought our annual jaunt to Vancouver, Wash., for the LIFE is Good Unschooling Conference, and in September we traveled to the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in San Diego. Between the two conferences, I gave two speeches and hosted two funshops, and Frank sat on the Dads Panel in S.D., which all went well and was fun (at least after the fact), but the main high at these events is always the chance to connect with so many wonderful people who parent with joy and kindness. Not to mention the amazing kids they travel with!

We've also had several chances to connect with family this year, having hosted Frank's nephew Jerry, his wife, Cori, and their wonderful 3-year-old bundle of energy, Molly, for two weeks this summer, with Jerry's sister, Lori, and her husband, Bobby, in for a couple of (hot!) days at the end, all in advance of the big Maier Family Reunion in Manzanita. After that, my dad and his wife, Reneé, came for a too brief visit, sadly interrupted by my unfortunate need to complete a work contract.

And did I mention the unschooler party on Vancouver Island, or the numerous trips to Oregon, or MJ and Chloe's trip to South Carolina for another unschooler party? No? I must have been too tired!

As you can see, we've been very busy this year. It's probably a good thing I haven't been able to find much work; I wouldn't have known where to fit it in! Still, I'm very glad to report that it looks like I have a long-term contract lined up for the new year.

This is getting long, but how can I close without talking about the music... And the words (MJ completed NaNoWriMo). And the meditation. And the driver's license. And the babies (Gabriella, Rudy, Jackson, Ryan, Connor, and probably a couple more new friends all arrived in 2009). And then there's the college planning both girls are doing (MJ is thinking psychology and Chloe is thinking set design) and the hints we're getting about what the next several years might look like.

It's a lot, and it all adds up to a happy, healthy, busy life with more fun and adventure than we sometimes know what to do with. But that's not a bad thing to cope with, eh?

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and not too busy holiday season and a New Year that is very fun and as adventurous as you would choose it to be!

Ronnie and the krewe