The Professor and Mary Ann

For anyone who didn't get a hard copy, this is what we sent out this year (with a bonus picture for my blog readers!): Greetings from the McFarlands! We hope this letter finds you all well and ready for a long winter’s nap. We’ve had a full year of fun and adventures, visiting Goblin Valley and Capitol Reef over spring break, leading a study abroad to Berlin and Tübingen over the summer, and jaunting out to California to see Mary Ann’s brother John marry Clarissa Lyons over Labor Day. We’re happily settling in for the holidays here, with plans of sitting by the fire and not much else. Here is what we have been doing: Maddie (13) is in her second year attending an accelerated program at the high school here. She says “Just because I’m a nerd doesn’t mean I have no social life!” She lives, eats, drinks and breathes ballroom dance. She has found her niche on the swim team, doing distance freestyle events and is close to making a state cut. She still loves Shakespeare, and got to s

We've been busy around here for Advent. Rob had three musical numbers at church. Maddie had a ballroom concert and two choir concerts. We had ward friends over for soup and cookie decorating. We attended the Adventsingen of the German department (held this year in the DeJong concert hall in the absence of the Provo Tabernacle). Maddie and Rob dressed up in their TrachtenMode again for the ward Christmas breakfast and Maddie found to her dismay that her dirndl was not even close to fitting. I did a quick and dirty alteration (my mother is never allowed to see it), but in the end she wore a very pretty one borrowed from the Isaaks. Sebastian had a Christmas program too, and they sang all of those chinese classics like We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Fa-ra-ra-ra-rah I mean Silent Night. In addition, just before Thanksgiving Grandpa was hired up in Salt Lake by one of his favorite clients. This has meant that we're all getting spoiled by him at

This year for our gingerbread house, I checked three books out of the library and looked for ideas. And for future years and generations, here's a good rule to live by: "if you ain't baking' it, you don't get to vote on it." Without this rule we ended up choosing a church and I said some truly unholy words while the candy rose window wouldn't cooperate three times . This is always the point where I contemplate running out and buying a kit. Then I look down and see that I'm covered in molasses and powdered sugar and surrender. In the end, it has always turned out just fine: We had a good time, but the kids were playing happily downstairs and we didn't want their pestering hands to bother them, so Rob and I did a lot of the decorating. Sebastian put on the roof, Joss placed the shrubs, and Maddie decorated the trees with coconut and candies. This is the only fuzzy shot we got of the Isaaks' magnificent manor house, which was based on an actual