Christmas Letter 2009

To our Friends, Family, and the rest of you:

Good tidings to all of you this Christmas season from the Ryland family. We hope the past year has brought you success and happiness, or at least that you’ve been able to get by without professional intervention of some sort. Perhaps you’ve gained a few pounds, in which case your prospects of survival if you are stranded without food are that much greater, or perhaps through discipline and wise decision-making you’ve lost a few, and will be able to hold it over the heads of the rest of us.

As it goes, things have been fairly uneventful for the Ryland family as of late. Jackson was not mistakenly thought to have floated across several states in a home-made balloon, Tiffany was not interrupted by Kanye West whilst receiving an important music award, and Sam did not become the first black President of the

United States for at least two reasons he can think of. As a result, we have received very little media coverage this year, and thought we would write this letter to more or less fill in the gaps for all of you.

One of the points of interest we would like to address is that there is one more of us. Owen William Ryland – through no fault of his own – was brought into the world on the first of September, and has been hanging out with us ever since. We are ever so pleased to continue his acquaintance. He makes us happy, which is nothing short of remarkable in consideration of his unrelenting, thankless dependence on us for his every need.

You may recall that we have another son as well, named Jackson. We are pleased to report that he is walking, talking and singing, and for these and other simple accomplishments he is immensely proud of himself. I am sure when he learns to tie his shoes he will literally burst with joy.

Tiffany is clearly our only hope. She still has a perfect record at forgiving the rest of us.

Finding ‘work’ incompatible with his natural inclinations, Sam is headed back to school next year for a Masters degree in Social Work. He talked to his alma mater, Griffith University, and promised to be more consistent this time, and they accepted him. Griffith University is in Brisbane, Australia, for those of you who don’t know, and after briefly considering the commute we decided it would be best to relocate. So goodbye krispy kremes, hello sausage rolls.

If you’d like to know more about what we’ve been doing lately, well, you should have called or something. Just read the rest of the blog.

Love,

The Rylands

(Sam, Tiffany, Jackson and Owen)