Merry Christmas from the Yanceys 2012!

Hey this is Cymfanie. My dim-wit of a mother went and had some “surgery” to help her “feel better.” My mom always sleeps on her stomach so when the doctor doing the augmentation put her under she instantly rolled over. Because my mom is so freakishly skinny with leathery tanned skin, the doctor didn’t notice and, well, installed her new assets onto her back. Pretty hilarious. Anyway, since my mom is out of commission and Jefanie is off to school I get the joyous task of writing this stupid family letter.

Mom still sent her fancy Christmas card to all the people she really cares about. She bought some old parchment from a museum.  The paper came from historical documents so mom printed our family picture and letter on the backside. The picture was one of those trendy family pictures where we all wore red jackets and blue jeans in front of some abandoned warehouse covered in graffiti and broken windows. She said it made it look “rustic.” Dad said it looked like the cast picture of The Walking Dead. That is fitting since my family is comprised of a bunch of zombies anyway.

Our family moved to some insanely large house in Clearfield this year. The best part about it was the real reason we moved. Mom has gotten into all these essential oils that are around and has made some mixture to reduce her wrinkles. She used it four times each day for months. We were at this church activity at one of the pools and when she jumped into the hot tub, she steeped like a tea bag. They had to bring in HAZMAT and it was all over the news.  She had our house for sale the next day.

Of course, mom is still involved in all kinds of crap. She has that stupid No Pay Shui business still and has dominated all of the community theater in Davis, Weber and Morgan counties. Her scrapbook about her essential oil fiasco is actually pretty impressive. Her Xtrafowl company has hundreds of distributors and at least keeps my allowance coming.

Dad trained as a massage therapist this year. He got bit by a rattlesnake and had some spiritual experience he has called “my moment”. I call it antivenin + morphine.  He now walks around in pajama bottoms and never wears a shirt or shoes. He has recorded two CDs about meditation. The first is called I Didn’t Inhale which is all about breathing by only exhaling. I don’t get it. The other one is called Thunder Whispers where he whispers the word “thunder” over and over for 90 minutes. It has sold 6 million copies.

So Jefanie was missing for about six months after she went off to UC-Berkeley. What happened was she became a groupie for a band that does polka covers of Grateful Dead songs. She followed them on a national tour to St. Louis where they had a Grateful Dead polka festival. After the festival she was confused which band she was following and wound up following another band to Florida. She thought Gainsville, Florida was Berkeley, California and just started to attend class. She still managed to make homecoming queen, raise $24,000 for charity, made the varsity basketball team and broke the world record for eating buffalo wings.

I am 14 now and ready to move out. I decided to give up the tuba and start playing the sousaphone to better express myself. That, and graffiti. I started tagging my initials “C-O-Y” (Cymphanie Olivia Yancey) all over the place to make my mark. The sheep up here in Clearfield confused COY with the Japanese carp “Koi” and thought it was a sign of an Asian gang moving into their perfect little community. The fuzz swarmed the Korean family that lives next door and was about to charge them with drug possession and distribution. Finally, they realized that what they thought was drugs was really kimchi and dropped the charges.

My brother is 8 and always smells like dirt.

Somehow the high antioxidant chickens began to multiply out of control just like the multilevel structure of mom’s vita-chicken business. Anyway, since the chickens are multiplying so fast, they are undergoing a huge amount of evolution. In fact, there are thousands that seem to have developed human intelligence. Their leader is named Mr. Clucky and is like a normal chicken except he has opposable thumbs and a slight British accent. All he does is draws diagrams and keeps talking about December 21^st. All the other chickens just stand in formation looking ominous.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on in our boring world. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and all that crap. Good luck during the chicken apocalypse.

Love,

Jeff, Stephanie, Jefanie, Cymphanie and Mr. Clucky, our new gallus overlord. 

Merry Christmas from the Yanceys 2011

Merry Christmas everyone! I am back to writing our family Christmas letter on Jeff’s blog and am so happy to let you all know what we are doing. For my close family and friends, I carefully stenciled our annual newsletter in gold leaf on the special paper they print money on. It was so humbling to send such a special gift to those I love the most.

We bought a new house again this year. We moved to Heber City, Utah where I have always wanted to live. I love that I can put on my designer jeans and head into the big city for my shopping. We decorated the house with a country theme with items I purchased at yard sales all through the summer. I am against animal cruelty so I made sure that all of the furs and antlers we bought are synthetic. Although, I still must have real leather in my new Jaguar XKR-S.

If you remember last year Jefanie wrote our Christmas letter and did such a great job. I am feeling much better now. I am back to my normal stuff: my non-profit No Pay Shui, training for another Iron Man, making artisan breads and of course scrapbooking. I quit my previous work since I founded a new multi-level marketing company. My new company is called Xtrafowl. I sell hotdogs made from free range chickens I raise in my back yard, feed exclusively with blueberries and dark chocolate and wash everyday in a bath made with honey, cucumber and water imported from the Alps. They are pumped with vitamins and antioxidants, slightly blue but taste like asparagus.

Jeff gave up his job writing fortune cookies and now hunts rattlesnakes. He bought a whip, fedora and spends all day in the desert having adventures. It is completely against who I am, as an animal lover, you know. So I made him sleep outside during the summer. He spent all of his time working out that I eventually had to let him back in. You should see his abs!

Jefanie turned 16 this year and went off to college. She surprised us all by going to some school in Berkeley, California. She filled her car with her books, musical instruments and stuffed animals and drove off to school. We haven’t heard from her since. Jeff keeps putting on his fedora and declares that he is going to find her and bring her home. I just keep telling him that she is just busy with school and will call us eventually. I think he is just sad since we have an empty nest.

I let Cymfanie decorate the Christmas tree since her Quidditch team won nationals. She decorated it with extension cords, empty beer cans and headless Barbie dolls. At the top she put the grim reaper with David Hasselhoff’s face. I made her take it down and replaced it with the tree I made for the Festival of Trees. She is 13 and seems to be going through some kind of a phase.

Our cute little boy just turned 7. He is my pride and joy now that Jefanie is gone. He reminds me not to be so introverted and narcissistic all the time. I was like that for my mother. I would talk about all of the things I am doing and she would thank me for reminding her how important it is to be humble.

When we moved to Heber we left behind all of our cats. When we moved we had 219 Ringos because they wouldn’t stop multiplying. They now have control of Lehi from Main Street to Utah Lake and the cat population of Utah County is 99% feral. I miss my cats so much. I really think that the cats were the only ones who could truly understand me. Now we have the chickens with super anti-oxidative properties so I have plenty of companionship.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!

Love,

Jeff, Stephanie, Jefanie, Cymphanie and the vita-chickens.

Merry Christmas From The Yanceys 2010!

Hi everyone this is Jefanie. J Mom isn’t feeling well so I am writing the family Christmas letter this year. L I am pretty excited to do it because I am such a talented writer. ;) For those of you who are special enough to get this letter on fancy paper, it came from that cute Middle Eastern store downtown. They have this cute little kid that is so cute there. I love how cute Arabs are when they are small. It is funny how the best Christmas paper is made by Muslims. ;)

Dad was in charge of decorating the house this year so we don’t even have a tree. L He basically just found a string of bundled Christmas lights, plugged them in and put them in the window. :( He didn’t even take them out of the bundle. He is such a nerd. At least he has a job so I can keep getting my allowance. He is currently writing fortunes for fortune cookies. He keeps sticking in stupid ones like “I hope you enjoyed the garlic chicken, don’t forget a mint” and “If you ate the Lo Mein you will soon die.”

We had some big changes in our family this year. Mom kind of went crazy back in March. She had some Botox and got a small blemish above her eyebrow. She now goes tanning every day to get the rest of her body to match the color of the blemish. Currently, she is the color and texture of our mahogany leather sofa. When she isn’t tanning, she mostly sits around the house in her sweat pants eating cous cous and collecting stray cats. She now has 12 and all are named Ringo.

I have been as busy as usual. I just turned 15 and am loving my senior year of high school. I was awarded the Sterling Scholar in 5 different subjects at my school. I still dance on the side with 4 different companies. I just perfected Italian (buongiorno) and the french horn. I lettered in soccer and volleyball this fall and am looking forward to softball and basketball this year. I have been running my mom’s non-profit organization No Pay Shui while she is sick. I love decorating poor people’s houses! Since I am off to college next year I keep getting calls from Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Stanford. I might just go to BYU so I can find a husband, but not for at least two more years. lol

Cymfanie is playing quidditch this year with a local team of nerds. I went to one of the matches and it is really exciting. I think most of those boys are glad she is on the team just cuz they have the chance to talk to a girl. She is the snitch runner so she dresses in gold spandex and tries to keep a tennis ball shoved into a tube sock away from the seekers. Cymf and mom are really getting close lately. Cymf makes her oatmeal every morning and puts in a special sweetener. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to make mom sleepy.

My little bro is 9 and a real dork. J

Mom’s cats ate our dog Annie. L It was pretty tragic. Dad had spilled some tuna on Annie and the cats went nuts. The only thing left over was Annie’s collar. Dad had to wrestle it from Ringo #7.

Well that is it for us! Merry Christmas! We love all of you, even the ones who are reading this on the blog!

Hugs!

Jeff, Stephanie, Jefanie, Cymfanie and Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo and Ringo.

Merry Christmas from the Yanceys Part IV

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas everyone! I am so glad it is that time of year again. I can’t believe that this is the 4^th year I have done the annual family Christmas letter on Jeff’s blog. This has saved us so much money because we do not have to send Christmas cards to everyone, just our closest friends and family. I decorated my house so nice again this year. If you come onto our street and tune in to 720 AM, you can listen to Jingle Bell Rock sung in 7 different languages all timed to the moving light display. I got the tip from a new store I found downtown run by Arabs. It is so nice to make friends with people from the Middle East so you know they are not terrorists.

We moved this past summer to Lehi because one of our friends showed us this cute house in a more family friendly neighborhood. Now we have a bathroom for each person in the house plus two for guests. I make Jeff use the one downstairs because men are so gross. He wants to put a urinal in the garage but I won’t let him. Jacob Black wouldn’t build a urinal in the garage.

I didn’t think I was going to get this blog posted because I have been so busy this year. I am putting so many miles on my new BMW 335d. The girls at the salon are so impressed at how I have reduced my carbon footprint. I insisted on getting a hybrid so I can feel like I am saving the world, even though global warming is just a bunch of political garbage.

Speaking of political garbage…I met Sarah Palin. She came to a Costco in Salt Lake City and I swallowed my pride and got a membership. Humility is a virtue! I love how she has gone rogue and isn’t letting anyone tell her how to be except her press agent and several of the republican elite. What’s more, she just dresses and acts just like a woman should…just like me!

I am pretty much to my regular self…real estate, my non-profit No Pay Shui, plus I am starring in A Miracle on 34^th Street put on by the Lehi Community Theater and I am also playing the Ghost of Christmas Present (the cute one) in the Alpine Community Theater. I am also writing a poetry anthology, scrapbooking, training for an Ultra, teaching zumba, perfecting my talents on the oboe, learning Italian and Sanskrit and selling NuSkin. I was going to sell Scentsy but I decided that it is too trendy.

Jeff is pretty much back to normal. Besides wanting to put a urinal in our garage he is working on his first screenplay. It is an adventure movie musical meshing the storylines of The Lord of the Rings and The Godfather set in the times of the pioneers crossing the planes. Apparently, Brigham Young is a mixture of Gandalf the Grey and Vito Corleone. I really don’t know what to do with my husband, he is certainly no Edward.

Jefanie has joined me in the wonderful world of acting. She is actually recreating the role of Tiny Tim in community theater. The director was opposed to it first, but I told him that if my daughter wasn’t in the role of Tiny Tim I would put on my own production. I was going to have her join me in the other show, but she is so busy with her music (she plays 7 instruments now), her sports (she plays in 5 sports), her dancing (she does 11 different dance styles) and her school (she is the top of all of her classes). I think she is the best little girl in the history of 14 year old girls, except…well…for me.

Cymfanie has started playing roller derby. Jeff thought it wasn’t the best thing for her, but I am glad she is participating in team sports. She is 12 now and I think it is good for her to get out of the house and stop playing that stupid tuba. She calls herself “Mom Hater” which I think means she hates all of the other players that could potentially become mothers. I am glad she is doing it because we really seem to have connected. She will never be as close as Jefanie and I, but it is so nice to have another daughter as a friend.

I made such a silly mistake and left our 8 year old son in O’Hare airport. I was there to open a new chapter of No Pay Shui and Jeff urged me to take him along. I got so busy thinking about all of the stuff I needed to do I just climbed on the plane. It was good because I was able to convince a person in the seat next to me to be a NuSkin distributor and didn’t have to worry about how my son was doing back in coach. Oh, he is home okay. Jeff went and got him.

Our dog Selma had a litter of 12 puppies this year. One of the pups was so cute I just had to keep him. Jeff said we really could only have one dog so I gave Selma away to the shelter with the rest of the puppies. Our new puppy is so cute. Cymfanie wanted to name him after me and although I was flattered, I thought it silly for a boy dog to have a girl’s name. I wound up naming him Anderson after my favorite CNN personality, but we call him Annie for short.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!

Love,

Jeff, Stephanie, Jefanie, Cymfanie and Annie.

Merry Christmas from the Yanceys 2008!

Dear family and friends!

It is time for another Christmas letter. I think this is the third year doing it on Jeff's blog and I think it is the way to go. I sent the most beautiful Christmas cards (to my really close friends) that I got from the Oriental Store downtown before they went out of business. I also picked up all of the decorations I needed to make our home the most beautiful in Alpine at close-out prices. I am going to miss that store, but I guess that is what happens when you don’t work hard enough to succeed.

This has been such a busy year. We moved to Alpine. We got rid of our old dog and got a new one. I made one of the biggest decisions of my life and changed my hair color. I went from bleach blond with natural lowlights to natural blond with bleach highlights. My real estate business was slowing so I needed to add some excitement. I also think it goes better with the leather seats my new black Lexus. The girls at scrapbooking night didn’t say anything about the change, but I knew what they all were thinking.

Besides that I am being much more giving of myself. My non-profit organization is taking off. I don’t know if all of you are aware, but I am the CEO, president and executive director of No Pay Shui, where I provide free feng shui consulting for poor people. It feels so good to help people who can’t decorate for themselves. I am still painting, crafting, training for an Iron Man, teaching spin classes and creating new, nummy smoothies.

Jeff had a strange phase this year. After his band split up (even after I took over the management) he started dumping dirt into the basement. He spent all day and night for weeks building this strange looking mountain. He didn’t shower, eat or sleep. Every time I went in the basement he just insisted, “This means something, this is important!” He spent a few days in the hospital after collapsing and is better now. He is happy working at the Alpine Subway and his hair plugs make him look so much better.

Jefanie is still my perfect little princess. She is just blossoming and blossoming. She is just 13 and is already taking Utah county by storm. She is just like me in that she excels in everything she does. She still plays the harp, piano, flute, violin and oboe and is first chair in all sections of the Utah County Youth Orchestra. She also finds time for her ballroom dancing, ballet, Latin dancing, Irish Dancing, modern dance and clogging. She was the MVP on her volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball and lacrosse teams and she was asked to not compete in the Miss Utah County competition because other girls just wouldn’t stand a chance.

Cymfanie has really turned her life around. She is starting to wear pretty clothes and make up that I like. She is making a big effort in taking extra study classes after school and on weekends. When she comes home she is so relaxed (except she is really hungry) and smells so nice of toothpaste and Febreeze. Jeff thinks that she is hiding something, but I think she has found her inner rosebud and is ready to bloom. I think it has something to do with her new set of friends.

I keep forgetting to tell what is going on with our son in these letters. I just get so distracted with all of the activities I am involved in. Rest assured that I am a fantastic mother and none of my children will ever go without attention or care.

Like I said before we had to get rid of our dog Minigretch. She just wasn’t as loving as Gretchen was. Jefanie and I didn’t like her at all. Really, the only one who liked her was Cymfanie, but I know she understands why we replaced her. Our new dog is name Selma and she is the sweetest most perfect dog in the world. She is purebred (of course) and has the nicest bark. We have to be careful because she runs up and growls at people passing by, but I know that she is too sweet to bite anyone.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Jeff, Stephanie, Jefanie, Cymfanie, and Selma. 

Merry Christmas from the Yanceys part Deux.

Dear Family and Friends,

I decided to leave up the blog from last year so you can see how things have changed. Just click on Merry Christmas from the Yanceys on the right!

What a crazy year this has been! The house looks great this year like it always does, Jeff keeps thinking that the money should be used for more altruistic endeavors. I think the best way I can spread Christmas cheer is to make my house as pretty as possible. Besides, I spent over $1500 at that Oriental store. Now they will be able to get the old man's teeth whitened. It feels so good to help someone else have a Christmas miracle, even if they are Buddhists.

Things have been busy for us, we did some remodeling of our home which was such a mess. I decided that I wanted taupe stucco instead of tan and it was so worth it. I want us to get a new Lexus that matches the house better but Jeff seems to think that is too much. I am just going to die when the girls come over for book club in March to not have a matching house and car. Sorry to those of you who have not been invited to that, maybe after Gail finally expands her living room. (jk)

I decided that I needed some new hobbies on top of everything else I have been doing. I decided to learn French, start a small travel agency, write a food column in the local paper and start a non-profit organization. My French is coming along really well, I listen to it every time I go for a run and I speak better than most French people. Of course, you know that when I am not involved in my many, many interests I am with the girls down at the salon. Oh, I almost forgot! I am also campaigning for Mitt Romney. I really don’t know what he stands for, but he must be the best because he is Mormon.

Jeff needed to find himself so he completely stopped writing and started some garage band called Tyra's Forehead. He says it is a way of rediscovering his youthful vitality. I think it is just noise and a huge waste of time. The band has some album coming out in a few weeks, called Easing Hormone Anxiety. He keeps sitting around the house with his guitar singing stupid songs about carmel and homing pigeons. He also started on this cabbage diet and has lost over 100 lbs. He looks really sick to me and I think he should just get hair plugs.

Jefanie is becoming so pretty. She is 12 years old now and flourishing as a beautiful young woman. She is so incredibly talented and capable, I don’t know what to do! She is just like her mom. She received the Most Promising Girl of Sandy Award, Princess of the Year for Sandy and the prestigious American Beauty of Sandy, Draper and Riverton (which also includes Herriman). I just know she will be homecoming queen here in a few years. She was on the honor roll in her school each quarter and she was the MVP in every sport she played in last year. She wrote a poem that took first place in a national competition. She is my perfect child!

Cimfanie is 10 and has become really weird. She dresses all in black and wears black lipstick. She also listens to the worst music. I try to get her to dress and act more like her sister, but she just throws the cute make up and outfits I give her in the trash. I made her stop taking her tuba lessons because I really didn’t like her teacher. The teacher kept telling her that she was some sort of musical genius, but I don’t think he should be getting her hopes up. What do they teach those teachers at that stupid Julliard academy anyway? Jeff and I argued about her a lot this year. We argued about my country music too.

I totally forgot our 7 or 8 year old son in last year’s newsletter. Sorry.

I regret to inform you that our dog of 20 years, Gretchen, passed away last March. She was such a sweet little friend. We buried her in the backyard which is against city ordinances but I wanted her close to me forever. We are thinking of moving to Alpine next year and Jeff said he will not dig her up if we do. We will just have to see. We did get a new dog that looks just like a mini Gretchen, so we call her Minigretch. Jeff says her name sounds gross, but he is just a guy with a one-track mind.

I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas. Be sure to vote for Mitt!

With Christmas Love,

Stephanie, Jeff, Jefanie, Cymfanie and Minigretch.

Merry Christmas from the Yanceys!

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! We hope all of you are having as wonderful holiday season as we are. It just seems that life is getting more and more crazy, but it could just be me! (lol) Our house is just perfect this year, Jeff carefully hung lights and decorations all around our already beautiful home according to my instructions. I found a cute little Christmas store downtown owned by an Oriental family where I bought thousands of dollars worth of decorations to put around our home. Jeff wanted to donate the money to charity, but I thought that we shouldn’t be feeding the poor, we should be getting them jobs!

Our girls are growing up so fast. Last year they were 10 and 8, this year they are 11 and 9. No, although there were several rumors that the Yancey family was growing, I am not expecting. I don’t know who keeps spreading these rumors every year, but it isn’t me. Hopefully, I can catch you all up to everything we have been doing.

I finally talked Jeff into letting me get a Lexus SC 430 Convertible. It is so cute. Last year we got the Escalade, but Jeff took it camping and made it all smoky. I can’t drive to my many appointments smelling that mess. I love having the wind go through my hair. I pulled into my hair appointment the other day and all the girls came out to see my new wheels! I could tell they were jealous. Besides that, I am just way too busy with my real estate business and trying to get the girls to all of their things. I am still scrapbooking and writing poetry. I have tried to get into pottery because of Ghost but it is just too messy.

Jeff has switched over to writing children’s books. This year he published Baby’s First Clam Chowder and Why Satan Replaced Third Base with a Pancake, available everywhere LDS books are sold. We are getting check after check for his non-fiction books Beltloops: A Practical Approach and A Family Medical Guide: From Colitis to Colostrum. He still doesn’t eat salad and is getting really, really fat.

Jefanie is now 11 and has discovered boys. She dresses so pretty. She is also involved in singing, dance, ballet, clogging, modern dance, cheerleading, modeling, acting and ice hockey. She is also in soccer, tennis, volleyball, softball, basketball, and lacrosse. She got an honorable mention in the Miss Cottonwood Heights pageant which was hosted by Bobby Flay. They show it every once in a while on the Food Network at 2:00 a.m. Set your TiVo!

Cimfanie is now 9 and loves reading. She has always been our little tomboy which is why I don’t like her as much (jk). She keeps mom busy with her tuba lessons and we need to talk with her about trying to do so much. She just isn’t as capable as her mom and older sister. She has always been daddy’s little girl and obviously got his genes and fashion sense (jk).

Gretchen is happy barking at people and laying around the house. She is blind in one eye and seems to be quite a bit of pain. The neighbor dog chewed off her tail and right ear but I think she will be with us for another four Christmases. I hope so because that will make 20 years and I really want her to be part of our family. But if not, oh well!

Have a Merry Christmas to all.

Love,

Jeff, Stephanie, Jefanie, Cimfanie and Gretchen.