Friends and family,
Yes ... the letter at Christmas carries on. Kind of.
Taking a cue from the McClatchy Corporation, which just shuttered the Enquirer-Herald of York/Clover, not because it wasn't making money but because it wasn't making enough, we have decided to go with the times and shutter the print version of our Christmas letter.
The current market forces are such that print has an ever-decreasing shelf life, and we are nothing if not hip and up with the latest trends. So we are introducing our first "Digital-only" Christmas letter.
The Guilfoyles of Fort Mill frankly are looking forward to the end of 2015. It has been a year of ups and downs, but the downs, while outnumbered by ups, have been low, low downs.
On the downside, I am still missing my Dad. Particularly around the holidays, or any week with a “day” in it. He was the bright center of the Guilfoyle family, always one with a joke.
And we are still missing my best furry friend. Harry, my first dog, who died a couple of months after Dad. Annie, our other dog, had become the most surprising gentle girl. She was hyper-competitive with Harry, it turns out, but now she just wants to be around us.
But now Annie is not with us any more.
She was a remarkable dog. She survived eating a whole bar of dark chocolate and getting her stomach pumped one New Year's Eve. She had her side slashed open one time when we visited Spartanburg, though we have no idea on what she caught her skin.
She slowed down a bit after being viciously attacked and bitten by another dog last year. She suffered about eight nasty bites. It was scary, but she has recovered.
But she came down, very suddenly, with a cancer that cost her her appetite at times and made it hard for her to even sleep. We said goodbye right after Thanksgiving.
I remain a copy editor and page designer working in Hickory, N.C., designing newspaper pages (sports right now) since October of 2010. I am primarily working on the Dothan Eagle.
The people I work with are terrific, but it’s a LONG commute with terrible hours. My car now has more than 280,000 miles, so that's 30,000 plus since last year.
Patricia remains ensconced in the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., where she is editor of the Catholic News Herald.
She put together a project for us to work together on, and we went on pilgrimage to Philadelphia when Pope Francis visited the United States in Septmber. We had a really good time but were exhausted after. The days were filled with pilgrimage stuff and covering the pilgrims, but when they came back to the hotel at night to rest up for the next day, we had to post our videos and file our stories.
Patricia said she liked watching me interact with people. It's a side she doesn't get to see often. I just like watching her be her organized self.
It has been a good year for our son, Stephen Christopher. He is now 9 and a third-grader.
We are still with Pack 9 at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
There's a new program for all Cub Scouts and we are a little behind where we were a year ago. We are working on a new Pinewood Derby car with help from Uncle Johnny.
I am Pack 9’s assistant cubmaster, God help the children, and still the interim Tiger Den leader.
Stephen has also taken up Tae Kwan Do. He is already a Green Belt. He got a year's lessons as a present from his Aunt Caca. Thanks, sis.
We know we haven’t been around as much as we could. We are doing well, but our life is just non-stop hectic most days, so that when we get some free time together, we just generally want to do something quick and easy and together. But never doubt our affection.
Have a merry Christmas.
(Email is still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)
“We love you anyway.”
Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher
sguilfoyle@comporium.net
Dec. 24, 2014
#MissingBud
#MissingHarry
#MissingAnnie
