Every year I ask all six of my children to write a Christmas letter. The kids at home are asked to give me at least one sentence about each of their siblings.
Dear Friends and Family, Christ is Born! Glorify Him! Christmas 2024
We love living in the Land of Enchantment with all Mike’s relatives and our beloved church family. Our goddaughter Ryanna came for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, and this year we saw the balloons rise from the field. I have taken up cello, Pilates, and have just published my fifth book Syra’s Scribbles V: 2011-2012 available on Amazon. I have signed copies to sell as well.
I also keep up with my blog syrasscribbles.com and teach Calculus at the private school Xenia and Justin attend. I have read a lot of good books this year including some fun YA series. I’m going to have a big birthday party in January to celebrate turning fifty. Please send cards!
Mike continues to enjoy working from home. He had his first trip back to San Diego for work since 2020 and can expect more trips next year. He likes spending time with his brothers and friends from church.
Esther and John Ben who are proud parents of a son, are finishing up their master’s degrees. Their classes are finished, and they plan on writing their master’s theses from Albuquerque. They are looking forward to spending time with us and being closer to John Ben’s family in Texas.
Our first grandbaby Michael (Misha) was born in April. I went to Ohio the week before to help with nesting. My days are brightened by Facetime baby fixes, but holding him in person off and on this summer between the kids’ philosophy conferences was pure joy. He is close to sitting up independently.
Sophia and her cat Tax Fraud moved in with us at the end of summer. She is a full-time art student with an online college out of Colorado. Sophia, Mike and I took a weeklong wine tour in the Willamette River Valley. We saw the ocean and waterfalls and mountains and came home with many bottles of wine.
Basil graduated high school and did a great job defending his senior thesis about the personhood of extra-terrestrials. He spent his summer at the Antiochian Village and was joined by his brothers the week that the relics of St. Raphael were translated from his grave to St. Ignatius Chapel. Basil enjoys classes at Embry Riddle University and spent his hurricane days off vising friends in Texas.
Jonah (15) is homeschooling for high school. He has his learning permit and loves to chauffeur me around. He takes piano and parkour with his younger siblings and likes to ski with friends from church. This summer he attended Camp St. Raphael in Oklahoma and the Antiochian Village Camp in Pennsylvania.
Xenia (13) is in her last year of middle school. She liked living in Ohio with Esther fall of 2023 but was happy to stay with us when she came home for Christmas. She attended Camp St. Raphael with her brothers. She takes parkour and is often found up in a tree.
Justin (11) is my sweet boy. He has a cell phone and the freedom to roam our little village of Corrales. He loves spending time in our library and has a made a couple of local friends. He attended Camp St. Raphael and the Antiochian Village Camp. He plays piano and ukulele.
Coryn (Mike’s mom) moved in with us this autumn. She appreciates having us around in case she has a fall. We in turn love the joy she brings to our household and the help with the dishes.
Love, Syra
Dear Friends and Family,
Merry Christmas!
My husband John Ben and I have been married for a year and a half now, and it’s been the most wonderful adventure. I gave birth to our first child, Michael Joseph Aloisius Berry, on April 11, 2024. Since he was born he has been a big sleeper, a big eater, and tall (long?) for his age. He’s got John Ben’s mouth and my eyes and nose. He can sit up now, and babbles “mamamama” and “whywhywhywhy”, which is a real foot in the door to the world of language.
In the meantime, John Ben and I have both been enrolled in Masters programs at Franciscan University of Steubenville. We will both graduate this spring and are completing our fourth semester remotely in the interest of spending some time with our families down South. I finish the coursework for my program this December and will be writing my thesis on philosophical tensions between Thomas Aquinas and Dietrich von Hildebrand. This winter we are also applying to Doctoral programs, so please pray for us to be accepted together somewhere! If all goes well, we will begin our PhD coursework in the fall of 2025, with little Misha along for the ride.
Best wishes,
Esther
Dear friends and family, Merry Christmas
The past year has been more relaxed than those of late. I spent the first half of the year, living with my grandmother. My cat “Tax Fraud” got along well with her dog “Lucy.” in May I turned 21 and in July my parents took me wine touring in Oregon. My mom avoided alcohol as usual, but there were waterfalls of plenty to occupy her. This fall me, Tax Fraud, and my grandmother moved in with my parents. I started classes at an art school to become an interior designer, which has been occupying most of my time. Basil is gone, Esther will be back soon, and Jonah, Xenia, Justin and I spend a good deal of time together. I’m sure next Christmas will come around too soon.
Best wishes, Sophia
To everybody
My year has been one of the fullest and most intense of my life. We started out this year writing my senior thesis and preparing for my graduation. The thesis discusses the topic of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. After my graduation I spent my summer working for the non-profit, the Antiochian Village, where I have been cooking, cleaning, and having the time of my life. We got to do many things including unearthing a historical figure and going to the first baseball game in several years. After the summer ended, My mother and I drove from our home in Albuquerque to Daytona Beach, FL. It was a twenty-five-hour drive, and we made it across four days, having fun the whole way. I was the driver the entire trip, which helped me down the line during Milton.
College Life: I have been going to Embry-Riddle, and I have been enjoying my classes, trying my best to get good grades. It has been a little bit of a struggle, adapting to self-reliance on scheduling and activities, but I hope to keep improving. And then: Milton. This was the first real hurricane of real strength that I experienced. I took my truck and drove all the way to Texas to hang out with friends for the week, staying with Relatives in Georgia. It was awesome! Best road trip ever!
Now I am preparing for finals, and winter break for more driving and finally a chance to really catch my breath.
It’s been a great year, and I hope to keep you updated, merry Christmas!
Basil Ruehle
Dear friends and family,
Ι would like to wish you a merry Christmas, and I hope this finds you well. This past year was an overall good one. Ι have switched to being homeschooled and find it good, in the breaks I enjoy riding my one-wheel, an electric skateboard with one big wheel instead of four.
As you would have known from last year’s letter my oldest sister Esther is now married but what you might not have heard is she is now a mother. Misha, as we call baby Michael, is the cutest thing in the world, it has been a while since Ι last seen him, but he has grown so much and has the brightest smile.
Sophia the second oldest, is now living with us in our great home, she was previously living with our grandmother to take care of her. She attends an online college to study interior design. She still has her cat Taxfraud, and still helps our mother with the house and us.
Basil is now attending college at Embry Riddle, in Florida, and though I haven’t seen him in a while, we stay in contact by playing online often.
Xenia is still as ever a big tomboy, climbing trees, running amuck, as well as going to gymnastics and a parkour class Justin and Ι attend.
Justin takes after Xenia and also loves climbing trees. Xenia and he play often together, doing all sorts of things. Justin also is great at pool and though I may be slightly better he is hard to beat.
Sincerely, Jonah
Dear Friends and Family,
Mom is teaching calculus and loving it but is obsessed with reading fictional stories of seventeen-year-old girls conquering the world. Dad loves smoking “stinky stuff” and drinking a glass of sophisticated scotch while enjoying a sprinkling of politics. Sometimes, I play Math with either parent.
Esther is probably having fun, cooing over a cooing baby in Ohio, while she and John Ben are finishing finishing-school.
Michael is awesome and I can’t wait to show him off to girls from my class… as long as I don’t have to change any diapers.
Sophia is crushing art school and still manages to hang out with me and Tax Fraud. “If I wasn’t a girl, I think I would be a cat” – me, mimicking Anne Shirley.
Basil turned nineteen and enjoys driving in his black, hybrid truck and Embrey Riddle college. Whenever I tell a story about him at school, any teacher present would sigh then laugh, “Yep, that’s Basil!”
Jonah has been loving it in homeschooling: the only school he can avoid by zooming off on his one-wheel. But seriously, he and Justin have got to tell where they are going on those things! Whenever the family is planning to do ANYTHING, the first question is, “Now, where are those boys?!”
Justin and I hang together, building leaf piles that we drop from trees into with our distant cousins, and playing Hide-and-Seek in the dark.
Our grandma moved in with us but that hasn’t changed the way we love her, or the way we live. I wish we had Grandma’s dog, Lucy, but dogs ARE stinky. Grandma gave Lucy to a loving neighbor and thankfully, Lucy is happy.
I am in middle school, entering high school next year – crazy huh? All the while, I still keep in touch with old accomplices. Come January, I turn the dreaded age of fourteen, where I will be lifted into the air in a cloud of sparkles and land as a total grouch, as the age implies – and trust me, my siblings were horrible at that age. But of course, I will be a perfect angel… when my siblings don’t completely deserve it [which they do, all the time]!
The End, Xenia
Dear friends and family,
Merry Christmas. Ι hope you are doing well. It has been a good year with many events. My mom is forcing me to write this letter before doing anything else. Anyway, Ι will start with Esther.
This year, Esther had a baby! He was born in April. Esther has come to our house a few times since Michael [That’s the baby] was born. He is adorable! The sweetest thing and he loves looking outside. Esther is still doing very well but she is often very tired. Sophia is now living with us. Taxfrod lives in Sophia’s room. He is not happy that Sohpia is not often around but every night when Sophia does her exercises in the big garage, she brings Froddy with her. She is very fond of curling her hair. Basil is going to Embry Riddle Collage. He is doing quite well in college. However, he had to leave because of the hurricane. Jonah is home schooled now. We get in a lot of fights, but we love each other. He now enjoys baking doughnut holes and hanging over at the convenance store. Xenia is pretty much the same but now she enjoys gymnastics and climbing trees.
Recently my grandma moved in with us and has brightened the house
My Mom and Dad are doing very well, and I am sure that they will wish you a merry Christmas. My mom wants to become a princess who conquers Africa and does Pilates. My dad has started smoking pipes and cigars in the front porch and I like to sit with him and ask him questions.
Love, Justin
Syra's Scribbles 