The Culp's Realistic Christmas Letter 2015

I LOVE receiving Christmas letters. People need to send more Christmas letters. You need to send me a Christmas letter.
However, do you ever think, like I do, that maybe we put a little too much gloss and glamour in our recounting of the year? Maybe we only hit the highlights so that people will never know the real in our everyday, or maybe it's because we think that's all people want to read.
So, for your reading pleasure, I am about to write...

The Culp's Realistic Christmas Letter 2015

 Wow, what a crazy full year!! 2015 brought us the greatest gift, our precious daughter Eowyn, who was born on May 3rd after a whole lot of labour and promptly yelled- NO SLEEP FOR YOU! This little girl is true to her word. It's a good thing God made babies so cute! And we do actually believe that we have the cutest one. Our apologies to baby's everywhere. 
The following days, weeks, and yes, months, have been hard as we completely change our way of life for this little peanut. She takes up a lot of room! Nothing seems to go as planned when a baby enters the picture. I had grand ideas of how lovely every day would be with my perfect child. Eowyn had an undiagnosed tongue and lip tie for the first 5 months of her life which meant that nursing took up to an hour and a half every three hours. Netflix was my friend. This went on for 5 months before I had the doctor check again- 'Oh, she has a tongue tie.' And with a simple operation, our precious girl finally began to gain weight and I had my life back!
As if having a baby and saying goodbye to sleep and sanity wasn't enough for the Culp family, Jordan decided to go back to school. (Take note that in going back to school he completely disregarded my direct order three years ago when we were taking one class together, I turned to him and said- You are never allowed to go back to school.)
Over the past year Jordan felt the tug quite strongly to study music and more specifically worship arts. He has a gift and a passion to lead others in worship. Coincidence that we live in Three Hills where Brian Doerksen started a Worship Arts program just a year before? I don't think so! So remembering my promise to 'go wherever he goes and there to be buried' I told him that of course I want to stay in Three Hills longer and have meals at my parents house! 
Jordan is a full time student at Prairie College as well as construction worker, Prairie Chapel Coordinator, Guitar teacher and Drums Teacher! (He can also teach Piano, any guitar, and probably the tuba) Life for this amazing husband and father is busy. 
Rachael stays at home. All. The. Time. Help. 
Without friends who come over to have tea and chat, as well as the wonderful world of Skype and FaceTime, I do believe I would start to babble full time. But somehow I keep quite busy! There is laundry, and dishes, and sweeping, and knitting and play time. I am trying to keep our cozy rental house a beautiful sanctuary for the three of us and quite literally keep the home fires burning with the wood stove! Speaking of the oven...since moving into our Gingerbread House, I have burnt the majority of my dishes. I don't usually do that, really, only occasionally. A month ago the oven, instead of burning our food or under cooking it, finally quit. Then two weeks later started again, and ever since has been going through menopause. Hot, then cold. Jordan's poor stomach is without many Christmas cookies this season!

Things that Jordan and Rachael have been lovingly arguing about in 2015:

Jordan has the hard journey of being married to a minimalist wannabee (Do I hear a Holla!?). He often catches Rachael tip toeing to the closet with an (unneeded) item to toss in the second hand bag. Sometimes she is able to make it past him and the bag gets quite big in anticipation of its journey

to the Tilly, but before freedom, Rachael starts to find certain items back in the original space, or tucked away in one of Jordan's boxes in the basement. You will often hear raised voices that will sound something like this: "Rachael, what are you doing?" "Umm...we're not using this..." "That's my candy jar for my future office!" "But you don't have an office!" "I will someday! Put it back!"

To top it all off, Rachael is now on a quest to rid the house of plastic, processed food, MSG, and gluten. Pray for Jordan. 

Likewise, Rachael has the hard journey of being married to an expert password creator. Jordan pulls out all the stops when it comes to security. The only problem is, Rachael can't remember any of them. On a recent outing to print some things off, Rachael, like every other time, had to call Jordan to ask for the passwords. He wasn't answering. She tried texting. He wasn't answering. She would have tried Facebook or email but she couldn't remember the passwords. So finally, she jumped in the car and stormed into the house, ready to show him how wronged she was. Boy was she mad, there was nothing Christ like or submissive about her attitude and she may have said a few words that she later 

regretted. Her best friend Jordan Ann walked into the house just in the heat of Rachael's threats to "change all the passwords to one letter!" She looked at them, then promptly turned around and left. 

Yes, we argued a few times in 2015. And now we laugh about most of them. In all seriousness, this year has been so FULL. Every day has had its challenges, and its joys. Eowyn keeps reminding us just how selfish we are! And God's grace keeps reminding us that He loves us freely and completely. I am learning a new dependence on God through the life of my daughter. I am terrified for her. How will I protect her throughout her life? I have had to realise that I can only do so much, the rest I need to turn over to God and trust Him. I literally have to raise my hands and say: I surrender. Jordan has been learning how to juggle. There is so much on his plate, work, school, demanding wife, adorable daughter. It's a lot for one man! He has been doing such an amazing job, but sometimes it gets hard. 

We hope that this strange blog post about our year has brought some laughs, groans, and hope into your normal or crazy day! God is GOOD, all the time and He has been good to us through all of the ups and downs of our year. God bless you richly as you celebrate His birth wherever you are!

Love from the Culps