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You are here: Home / About Us / The Flanders Family Christmas Letters / The 1988 Flanders Family Christmas Letter

The 1988 Flanders Family Christmas Letter

What follows is another yearly installment in our family’s complete history told via the 1988 Flanders Family Christmas Update. To see a full listing, see Our Christmas Letters. For tips on writing your own family history in this fashion, follow this link. In the meantime, enjoy!

The Flanders Family Update: 1988

January 1988 Happenings

Why our apartment complex insisted we rent an extra 350 sq ft to accommodate one tiny infant is more than I can understand — baby still sleeps in bed between us while the nursery stands empty — but rules are rules, so in January we transferred all our worldly goods from a cozy one-bedroom flat to slightly-more-spacious two-bedroom studio. As we don’t own much, this didn’t take long. Doug was able to cart most of our stuff down the block on his back, including our sofa (a tufted vinyl settee that was missing three buttons), our bed (a queen-size mattress, no frame), and our kitchen table (a drop-leaf Duncan Phyfe with water marks and one wobbly leg).

February 1988 Happenings

He might have saved himself the trouble had we waited another month. Most of those second-hand furnishings were replaced with the real thing in February. We spotted a notice in the Sunday paper that a North Dallas furniture store was going out of business and liquidating its inventory. We attended the auction and came home with a four-poster bed, a Queen Anne dining table, and — best of all — a Clayton Marcus camelback couch covered in an exquisite white damask fabric. (Flash forward six months to the first time baby drooled on the seat cushion and ruined the upholstery: What on earth were we thinking?)

March 1988 Happenings

1988 Happenings - Nana's Company Picnic

Doug was sick for 16 days straight in March. His fever broke just in time for him to accompany Jennifer to her first Natural Childbirth Class. For all the talk about relaxing completely and breathing deeply, Jennifer was beginning to feel a little nervous about her impending delivery and was glad to have Doug at her side. Unfortunately, when she tried to discuss what she was learning in class with her doctor, he became livid. “Don’t tell me how to deliver a baby! I’m the expert here. I’ve been delivering babies longer than you’ve been alive! No, I can’t guarantee your husband can stay in the room with you. He may get horsy on me, and I’ll have to throw him out….” Perhaps he missed the good old days, when women were knocked out cold before giving birth. Jennifer wasted no time in finding a new obstetrician. Dr. Ben Howard graciously agreed to take her on, and we’ve been delighted with his clinical expertise, as well as his bedside manner.

April 1988 Happenings

April brought cause for great jubilation. Not only did we celebrate both our birthdays and the anniversary of the day we met, but Doug finally heard from Southwestern: “We are pleased to offer you a position in our 1988 entering class….” Glory hallelujah! We won’t have to move to San Antonio, after all. (He’d received an acceptance letter from that branch of UTHSC back in January).

May 1988 Happenings

1988 Happenings - Jonathan with DadMay was filled with music. While Doug despaired of ever learning to sing (he’d been taking lessons from Jennifer’s voice teacher for over a year now — an exercise in frustration for both parties), Jennifer re-auditioned for the Dallas Symphony Chorus, now required of all members annually. She sang Mozart’s Queen of the Night Aria. Director Ron Shirey stopped her half-way through, fearing she’d go into labor if she had to hit any more high A’s. One is enough, he assured her: She may keep her spot in the first soprano section.

The Chorus performed Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky mid-month. As soon as the strings began to tune, our unborn child stopped turning somersaults and settled down to listen, thus demonstrating a discriminating taste in music, even in utero.

The month was nearly over before baby showed any sign of wanting out. Jennifer eventually felt a few contractions, and Doug drove her to the hospital. They were more intense by the time we pulled into the parking lot, but she was still determined to deliver without anesthesia. Ninety minutes later, she was wondering how her friends whose labors lasted two solid days ever survived 48 hours of this. “I can’t do it,” she begged, “give me an epidural!” Too late, the doctor informed her. Baby is crowning, so push. That she did and was rewarded with a beautiful son: Jonathan Douglas entered the world May 31 at 3:02 AM. He measured 22½ inches and weighed a whopping 10 lbs 6 oz, with ruddy skin, dark eyes, and a shock of long black hair. His sideburns were so long, in fact, it was all Jennifer could do to resist trimming them on the spot!

June 1988 Happenings

Doug began a research job at Southwestern the day after Jonathan was born. He spent the summer in the pathology lab studying rat hearts — poor little rats. Jennifer’s parents were concerned about her being alone while Doug was at work and insisted she shouldn’t be climbing our apartment stairs so soon after giving birth, so we ended up staying at their house the first week of June. Doug suspects this was really just an excuse to pamper their daughter and hold their new grandbaby, but he dutifully delivered his wife and son straight to their doorstep the day they were discharged from Presbyterian Hospital.

Our dear friend and philosophy professor, Jim Parker, came over for dinner once we’d moved back home. He brought two pounds of chocolate, explaining that his mother always claimed it made her milk rich. (Eager to test that hypothesis, Jennifer polished off the entire box in about three days). Dr. Parker also brought news of Doug’s biological family, having sleuthed around San Antonio with the information Doug had gathered from opening his own adoption records earlier this year.

July 1988 Happenings

Although his birth mother is no longer living, the rest of the family welcomed us with open arms when we made their acquaintance a few weeks later. Doug went from knowing absolutely nothing about his blood kin to having a detailed, written genealogy that dated back to the 1300’s in Norway and the 1500’s in Germany — complete with photographs of the last 6 generations, copies of their marriage certificates, and maps of their ancestral homes!

The story of his mother’s death is very sad: she conceived out of wedlock, was forced to give her baby up for adoption, grieved over the separation for an entire year, and took her own life on Doug’s first birthday. She wrote that she could not bear to live with the knowledge that someone else was raising her child. Tragic though it was, the story provided a measure of comfort for Doug, who had always assumed he was unloved and unwanted.

August 1988 Happenings

August took us to San Antonio to celebrate our first anniversary, although it wasn’t the romantic getaway Jennifer had envisioned. Doug’s childhood friends were home for the summer, so we spent the evening at Trek Doyle’s house, reminiscing about bygone days until well after midnight.

At least, one of us was reminiscing — the other was trying to piece together what disjointed fragments of conversation reached the corner of the room where she sat nursing the baby. It was a little like listening to an inside joke for six hours running. The candlelight dinner and schmaltzy music would just have to wait for the next night.

September 1988 Happenings

September was spent party-hopping. In addition to the baby shower given to us by our friends at Town East Baptist Church, we attended half a dozen events designed to welcome new medical students, introduce them to various clubs on campus, acquaint their wives one with another, and celebrate our embarking on the long educational journey that lay ahead.

1988 Happenings - Road Trip

October 1988 Happenings

Doug attended his classes faithfully, at least until he discovered the scribe service, which allowed him to just read over class notes instead — something he could do much faster than actually sitting through the lectures.

Jennifer took a sabbatical from her graduate studies to stay at home with Jonathan. With baby in arms for most of the day, she adapted to doing many things one-handed, including reading, vacuuming, washing dishes, and ironing clothes. Sewing and handcrafts have been more of a challenge, although she did manage to stitch curtains for the nursery and paint a heart-shaped welcome sign for the front porch in October while Jonathan was napping.

Jonathan

November 1988 Happenings

In November, Thanksgiving found us with hearts full of gratitude for our marriage, our baby, our home, our families, our opportunities.

Jennifer has developed an even deeper appreciation for God’s many blessings having spent time this fall getting to know our new neighbors, a startling number of whom work as topless dancers to pay the rent. By day, these single moms congregate in our living room to share meals, study the Bible, and learn how to cross-stitch, while their little ones play on the floor at our feet. By night, they take the stage at a downtown strip club and sell themselves cheap. It is heart-rending.

December 1988 Happenings

We’ll be heading to Corpus Christi in December, stopping in San Antonio on our way to enjoy the bright lights and festive atmosphere of the Riverwalk.

1988 Christmas

We hope your seasonal celebrations will be joyous, as well, as we remember again the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. May He bless you and yours in the coming New Year.

With love from the Flanders:
Doug, Jennifer, and Jonathan


<< last year                                            next year >>

Do you prefer to do your reading offline? You’ll find more of our family’s embarrassing moments, hard learned lessons, and hilarious antics all in Glad Tidings, a compilation of the first 25 years of Flanders Family Christmas letters. It also includes a few favorite recipes, seasonal quotes, time-saving tips, and fun family traditions. Volume 1 is on sale now. We’re hoping to release Volume 2 in the year 2037.

Glad Tidings - The First 25 Years of Flanders Family Christmas Letters

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meet the parents

Doug & Jennifer Flanders - www.flandersfamily.info

We love Jesus, love each other, love our 12 children, and love the life God's given us. We started this blog as a way to share resources with others who want strong marriages, happy families, & healthy homes.

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our favorite Christmas traditions

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Our Christmas Letters

Christmas 1987:
Our honeymoon Christmas

Christmas 1988:
Proud new parents of Baby #1

Christmas 1989:
Baby #2 has colic & curls

Christmas 1990:
Diapers & diabetes

Christmas 1991:
Doug's clinical year at Southwestern

Christmas 1992:
Baby #3 is born hand-first - ouch!

Christmas 1993:
Baby #4 - don't we know what causes that?

Christmas 1994:
David gets lost at a garage sale

Christmas 1995:
Baby #5 arrives!

Christmas 1996:
A not-quite second honeymoon

Christmas 1997:
New job, new home & new son - Baby #6

Christmas 1998:
Extreme sports & broken bones

Christmas 1999:
Baby #7 - Beth finally got a sister

Christmas 2000:
Coast-to-coast tour of US

Christmas 2001:
Baby #8 arrives two weeks early

Christmas 2002:
Our first cruise & our first marathon

Christmas 2003:
House building, army duty & Baby #9

Christmas 2004:
Backpacking Europe with all nine kids

Christmas 2005:
Home church & Baby #10

Christmas 2006:
Our firstborn leaves the nest

Christmas 2007:
Another coast-to-coast tour & Baby #11

Christmas 2008:
Our second-born leaves for A&M

Christmas 2009:
Doug & Jennifer write their first books

Christmas 2010:
Baby #12, Grandson #3 & four in college

Christmas 2011:
Mission trips, moving, broken bones, & diabetes

Christmas 2012:
Dental school, MCATs, & State Championships

Christmas 2013:
Beaches, Babies, Surprise Parties & Medical School

Christmas 2014:
Baby squirrels and book awards

Christmas 2015:
Daughter-in-Law #2, Grandson #6, Books, Braces & BlueGreen

Christmas 2016:
A marriage, a move & 2 new dentists

Christmas 2017:
2 new grandbabies & a BBC special

Christmas 2018:
World travel, summer conferences & Grandbaby #9

Christmas 2019:
Roadtrips, a wedding, and 2 more grandbabies

Christmas 2020:
Overseas vacations and Covid lockdowns

Christmas 2021:
Weddings, grandbabies, and a trip to Hawaii

Christmas 2022:
Four new grandbabies plus a big move

Etsy

Free Printable Party Games

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Christmas Charades

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Christmas by the Numbers Quiz

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Put the Baby in the Manger

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12 Days of Christmas Sing-a-Long

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Who Wore It Best? Matching Game

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Who Said What? Trivia Quiz

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What Child Is This? Christmas Quiz

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Name That Line Chirstmas Movie Quiz

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Christmas Travel Bingo

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For Unto Us a Child is Born Quiz

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While You Were Sleeping Trivia Quiz


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