Family.

Family.

Christmas is a time when family gets together, and celebrates together.

This Holiday season, I have a newfound appreciation for my family.


I know know people who operate with rifts splitting their family apart; reconcilliation is unwanted. It's sadening. I think of those who are missing parts of their families, and how much they would love to have those family members back with them for the holiday season. Even more so, orphaned children - whose parents have died from starvation, dysentery, or AIDS, or maybe they themselves were just simply dumped off on the side of the street or the steps of a children's home. Where are their families?

But my family...
My family is whole.
We laugh.
We talk.
We enjoy eachother.


This season was marked by the death of my Great-Uncle Ralph - my grandfather's brother. He was 94, and we don't know for sure if he ever really accepted Christ or not.
But still...
my family pulls together, and enjoys eachother. Of the entire Christmas celebration, there was only one melancholy moment.
And it was a good moment -
a thinking moment.


My family has taught me so much:
Generosity. It seems to be the Fertig proverbial 'middle name'. My grandfather encouraged all of us during the family gathering to continue on in generosity with eachother.
Humour. It's a virtue too often looked over as less important. Humour has got our family through the best of times, and the worst of times. If you can laugh together, you can live together. Laughter really goes a long way. We enjoy being around eachother.
Grace. Live life with grace and dignity. Complaining is not encouraged. I saw this Christmas the black-and-white different between those who complain, and those who don't. My grandparents have ailments, and yet they joke and tell stories rather than gripe about this doctorand that medicine. Life is better when there isn't complaining. It's a valuable lesson - one i hope to remember.

It's possible to both cling to the past and look to the future. My grandfather is one of the most brilliant men I know. He was a professor at the University of Southern Calfornia, and one of the top 100 schollars in WWI history in the entire United States at one point. When asked this Christmas by my father how many books he thought he had read in his lifetime, Friendad (my grandfather) contemplated the question for a moment, and then replied, "probably around 10,000". I don't doubt it. You should see my grandparents' house -- ever spare inch is filled with books. In the room I am staying in, I was looking through the shelves, and stacked on one shelf in the corner of the room, I found a 1839 copy of the Book of Martyrs. 1839!! Where did he get that?! The entire house is simply filled with treasures just like that. I wish I had more time here, so I could go through it.
Yet despite the house being like a time capsule, my grandparents are very much interested in the future. I don't mean future as in computers and electronics and such... i mean as in US. My granparents invest in my cousins and I. We know they love us and are so proud of us. This morning my grandfather and grandmother took me out to breakfast. It was heartwarming to see this cute little old couple, still very much in love at 90 and 88 years old, sitting in the booth eating breakfast, and talking to me about places they'd traveled to and things they'd seen. Friendad took the time to compliment me on some things he'd noticed in my character, which was very encouraging - compliments like that aren't ones you look over or forget. I'll remember his words for the rest of my life.

I wish there was some way to record the information in a brain -- so that stories and facts could be retained for future generations. I'm sure that if I took the next 10 years and a whole lot of video tape, I would still not have recorded everything my grandparents know -- knowledge, wisdom, and old stories of places and people. It's such a wealth of information, and good laughs!


I seem to yet again be rambling.

The thing is -- I love my family. I, of course, am very biased, and think it's just about the greatest family on earth. We're so unique (others might title it weird) -- i mean, my dad and my cousin Flint had a 10 minute conversation about the living habits of box turtles at the dinner table last night! -- we're happy (i dont think i've laughed as hard in years as I did yesterday) -- and we definitely love eachother.


Thank you, God, for my amazing family.
I'm proud to be Fertig, through and through.