It’s the Tom and Lisa Anderson Annual Groundhog Day Letter!

Greetings, friends and family,

We received your lovely, thoughtful, and punctually-delivered Christmas cards last December and, but as we sat in front of a box of stationery, we were totally stumped. We had nothing to write about. Nada. Between this Christmas and the Christmas before, we’d done almost absolutely nothing different. In the year before last we’d done all sorts of exciting things like gotten laid off and then found a new job, remodeled a bathroom, gone to Brazil, torn an ACL (Tom), had ACL replacement surgery (Tom), and tenderly cared for an invalid spouse until they got all better (Saint Lisa).

But here’s the list of all the awesome things we did in 2011:

We kept the same jobs.

We kept the same house.

We kept all body parts intact.

We bought a hamster.

Hamsters are crepuscular animals which burrow underground in the daylight to avoid being caught by predators. Their diet includes a variety of foods, including dried food, berries, nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables. They have an elongated pouch on each side of their heads that extend to their shoulders, which they stuff full of food to be stored, brought back to the colony or to be eaten later.

Although the golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) was first described scientifically in 1839, it was not until 1930 that researchers were able to successfully breed and domesticate hamsters. Pet golden hamsters are descended from hamsters first found and captured in Syria.*

Our hamster was first found and captured in PetSmart, where the adolescent pet store employee identified it as a female. With no evidence to the contrary, we took it home and Tom named it Jenny.

We hand-tamed it with Cheerios and bought it a clear plastic running ball for entertainment (mostly ours). A month or two later, Jenny started developing an attitude and didn’t want to come out of the cage or run in the ball. It sulked and brooded. We chalked it up to puberty. And then one day we flipped it over and were surprised to find that Jenny was a Jimmy.

Happily, Jimmy grew out of it and has enjoyed a daily routine of eating, sleeping, and running in his wheel.

Tom and Lisa also enjoy our routine of eating, sleeping, and commuting … which is pretty much exactly what Jimmy does all day, minus the traffic.

We’re exaggerating a bit. We did occasionally get off the exercise wheel and go to the Bahamas (with Lisa’s sister Debbie and bro-in-law Kellen), and Hawaii (with most of Lisa’s family), and Colorado (with Lisa’s parents where Tom wisely chose to sit in the hot tub instead of hit the slopes), and Oceanside, California for New Years. But, we mean, like, besides that, we didn’t do much last year.

Wishing you a very happy, rodent-based holiday,
Tom, Lisa, and *Wikipedia

Addendum 2/23/2012: 10-year old Christian read the letter and said, "Mom, where's Syria?" Christi answered, "Next to PetSmart."