Our Christmas Letter for 2005 Nancy and Bob Murdock, Editors - murmuse@comcast.net
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 2005
Dear friends and family, we are happy to reach this date with both of us in good health and enjoying this great life, 55 years into our marriage. Sometimes we marvel at how much we have - a great extended family on both sides, really good friends, easy access to all the books and magazines we can read in one lifetime, and a home where we feel safe. With every piece of knowledge of how this compares with an area of the world where water is a luxury, or conversely, where water has overstepped its expected bounds, we feel almost guilty to be so blessed.
We look forward to this season each year, eagerly skimming through the stacks of junk mail and pleas, to get to your cards and holiday letters. It’s such a treat to hear how you are doing, and to see the updated photos of your families.
Thanks to all who share news through our online newsletter, The Murdock Muse, at http://d21c.com/murmuse/ . It’s hard to believe that this publication has been active since January 1991. Of course, now that it is on the Internet, it has a somewhat different flavor, with Bob specializing in images to enhance the text. We always have had images, though. The first issue, which followed Nancy’s trip to Japan, contained a hand-drawn map of the plane’s route over the North Pole. We quickly added drawings by grandchildren and other talented readers. Now we have digital pictures that arrive via email. It often seems that the future is already here!
We are fortunate to be so close to everything. Within one mile of our apartment is our church, the mall, and our main supermarket (although Bob likes to shop at several other places for such items as specialty bagels, “natural foods,” and certain flavors of decaf coffee). We are within three miles of the library and Nancy’s office. It’s a quick ride to excellent museums and other points of interest, as well as wonderful fabric stores for quilting. Now if we could just get ourselves interested in walking more often...
Our local sports teams keep Bob’s attention and hope active, even though they sometimes miss the mark when they’re in the running. He sets himself up with his electric shaver and a comfortable chair in front of the much larger TV than we had when our eyesight was fresher. Thank goodness a significant portion of the population has aged enough to need more than the very small black and white we bought secondhand as our first TV. Now the question is whether one prefers to buy the very big one or the humongous one.
Nancy has been using a lot of beads and embroidery on some of her quilts recently, which surprises her. Hand sewing has never been her favorite, but this is more portable than even our small sewing machine, for taking to quilt meetings. We had to buy that little one, not to replace the still-reliable Bernina, but so we could carry it down to the car when necessary. Neither one of us really dares to schlep the big one down the stairs now, even taking it and its cover in two trips. It’s been many years since we as children used to have no concern about falling on ice or tumbling on the lawn. Remember those days? Nancy has happy memories of an area of the schoolyard at her 100-year-old school building where the girls took turns sliding and fell once out of every three tries. This was the same school that had a continuous supply of markers for hopscotch because the rain would wash layers of slate from the roof.
We’ve reached the point now where we really need name tags for family gatherings. We and our siblings have so many generations that a family tree on either side would be about twice as large as it would have been even twenty years ago. Also, we have connected with several cousins, realizing that the years were slipping by without our seeing them and their expanded families. This enriches our lives, and we plan to keep better track of them via The Murdock Muse and emails. Nancy’s cousin Clyde Howlett is now 96 years old and a great source of inspiration. He prints Christmas cards and enhances the envelopes with pictures. We all rely on his great achievement of the Howlett genealogy back to our great-grandparents and beyond. He and his siblings have been a great inspiration for keeping active past retirement age.
Thank you for being a part of our wonderful life. Best wishes for the year 2006.
With love from Nancy and Bob Murdock Baltimore, MD
