Our annual holiday card + a giveaway by Sycamore Street Press

Holidays 2014

Season’s greetings! It’s me, Myla. My mom begged and pleaded and bribed me to write the Christmas newsletter this year. Evidently, she doesn’t have the time to do this task, but a fourteen year old with A.P. classes, hobbies, and an impressive social life does. FYI that was laced with sarcasm since my dad is most proud of us when we are sarcastic. I will attempt to give you an accurate run-down on our life this past year… from my perspective.

Dad: “Dad. Walk it off. Quit whining. Just massage it.” Are currently popular phrases in our house, applying the same sensitive approach our Dad has used on us growing up – we are now returning with love – due to his many “mid-life” injuries- torn meniscus, calf tear, degenerative arthritic shoulders, blah,blah,blah.

Mom: She really enjoys the fact that we are “growing” up and able to take care of ourselves – most of the time. Hence, She has attempted to abandon us altogether by going back to school, re-launching her blog, teaching art and design classes, and more. But poor Sela, after seventeen years of parenting Mom is really tired of the toy phase and has nearly rid our house of toys. Its what I’d call a LOSE-win situation in stark contrast to the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” (thanks a lot Covey) that my parents love to preach to us.

Kiana: She turned 16 this past February and lets just say it’s been a rollercoaster. Luckily for me she’s making the big mistakes first. She borrowed dad’s car to her best friend (WHO DIDN’T HAVE HER DRIVER’S LICENSE YET) and in the five minutes she drove it, she totaled it. Don’t worry- no one was hurt- just the car. #dadboughtanewtruck – Which leads me to believe this might have been one of his secret schemes all along… he always gets what HE wants.

Myla (me): I’m currently 14 (not for long). I’m a freshman in High School, thriving amongst my generation Z friends – we are being raised in a highly sophisticated media and computer environment and are likely to be more tech and Internet savvy than any previous generation. Likewise, I spend a portion of my days preparing for and dreaming of conquering the tech world in about ten years – so ADOBE, MICROSOFT, APPLE, GOOGLE, if you’re reading this… Be afraid, be real afraid.

KJ: He’s a pretty “Swaggah” kid and he pretty much has no problems except with finding the right hair product and having his phone charged enough to last the whole day. He’s extremely respectful to his parents. Earlier this year my dad was trying to explain to KJ something to do with football and when he was done KJ said “Thanks dad for that completely useless piece of information. Now, what is the wifi password?” While golfing (we all took it up this year as a family hobby, including my newbie dad) dad was trying to give KJ a pointer when KJ opined, “This is like the blind leading the blind, huh, dad.”

Sela: Sela is about as courageous as, a mouse’s shadow. But what she lacks in courage she makes up in kindness, creativity, intelligence, thoughtfulness, just about everything else that is good. Yeah, I’d say she compensates for it. She’s constantly making amazing gifts to show her love for each of us and when I say constantly I mean each of us has a closet full of them. She found one such gift in the garbage and said “Dad, someone threw away this card I made you.” Dad quickly recovered it and said “Now how the hell did that get in there?” Coincidentally, Sela’s swear jar in the house has turned quite a nice little profit this year. Mom and Dad won’t admit it but she is obviously their favorite. The other three of us will spend a lifetime in therapy trying to help us realize we really are important too.

Seriously though, although we miss our Boston friends, moving back to Utah has been a blast. I’m happy to be a part of this very dysfunctional family. I hope there is a little dysfunctionality in each of your families that makes life fun, because hey not everyone can be perfect like me.

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, and for you atheists out there “u-huh, sure!” #Sarcasm #Stillloveya #butreally In all seriousness, we wish you the very best for 2015 – lets all make the world a better place to live.

– Myla, and the rest of the Rhodes family
(We’ll see if they ask me to write the family letter again. ☺)

This year, I decided I had to get our holiday cards finished early – during the Thanksgiving break we had last week – before it’s time for my finals in two weeks – or I would never get them done!!! It was a HUGE team effort, many many thanks to MYLA for writing our letter. Thank you to Kiana and the team of teenagers who helped in the assembly line process of putting our cards together, Thank you to Sela-bella for nicely putting on our traditional Ted Williams postage stamps. Thank you to my sweet husband who watched an hour long tv drama, then the entire TOP GUN movie while stamping all of the return address stamps on the back! And – to everyone else who contributed in some way!!! You all helped to keep our tradition alive. Bless you.

One of my favorite details of our cards this year – is the custom stamp by Sycamore Street Press, a local stationery company that has phenomenal style. (The SPS blog is one of my favorites!) Our stamp is the scandi circle custom stamp, and if you are interested in one of these stamps – head over to my instagram account @see_jane to find out how to enter a giveaway to win one! The contest runs December 5th – December 8th with a winner announce on the 8th! Happy, happy holidays!!! xo.

Our family pictures were taken in Lehi, Utah by Becky Kimball. The pictures were printed at Persnickety Prints. Our cards were INSPIRED by Lindsay’s last year christmas cards and are a custom design by myself and Stephanie Ford printed at Paper Bandit Press. The rubber stamp is by Sycamore Street Press.