In the Sunsparkle town by the Winky Sea lived a family called Renches, quite lively, you will see. With adventures of plenty and antics galore, they soon found themselves in a tale and much more. One bright, wibbly morning the Rench family five woke up and declared, “What a day to feel alive! Let us hop in a tuk-tuk! Let us bolt, dash, and zoom! Adventure is calling; there is simply no room for sitting or waiting or staying indoors. Let us roll down the windows and race through the shores!” So they hopped in a tuk-tuk, clatter, clang, rat-a-tat, a wobble-wamp ride in a three-wheeled tin hat. The engine went whiz, and the road went ka-thump, and Charlotte’s wild hair stood straight up in a clump. Her curls flew like fireworks, zoom, zing, and zup. “Do not worry,” said Charlotte. “It is just how I fluff up.” The tuk-tuk bounced onward through jungles of green, to places quite strange and to sights never seen. They soon reached the shore, where young Gwen, full of cheer, shouted, “Look at the ocean! We have to come here!” Her smile stretched so wide that the wave smiled back, and a seagull saluted while snacking a snack.
Then Charlotte, quite fearless, said, “Watch this trick here!” She stood on a board with no worry or fear. She paddled the bay with a whoop and a grin, balancing perfectly, never falling in. With a splish and a splash and a whoosh-wing flip, the kids leapt from a rock for a wild water dip. They soared through the sky in a laughing parade, a dive-bombing, splash-making, Renchy cascade. Gwen spotted a drink, oh, a creamy delight! She sipped it and sighed, “This is pure fizzy blight!” No one knows what blight is, but it tasted superb, and gave her the giggles, an extra fun perk. Meanwhile, Abe saw some burgers so big they looked fake, towering patties like a burger cake. His eyes opened wide as the buns reached the sky: “How can anyone eat that? Should I even try?” He needed more strength for a burger that tall, so he challenged his grandpa: “Let us arm-wrestle, Paw!” With elbows locked down and their faces all scrunched, they wrestled and chuckled while Grandma ate lunch. Then Charlotte announced, “I have invented a stand, a business of treats! Come on, give me a hand!” She sold yummy goodies, both sugary and sweet, a bustling bazaar on a sun-shimmered street. Then poof! They were dressed in delightful display as flower girls twirling on bright wedding day. They fluffed up their dresses with elegant swirls, a musing pair of two flower-filled girls. Dad knelt by the shore making castles of sand, but an octopus popped up and grabbed at his hand. It slurped at the turrets; it munched on the moat; it wore the main tower like a jaunty old coat. Then up in a balloon, whoosh! Mom and Dad flew, drifting above with a breathtaking view. They waved to the kids in the tuk-tuk below and floated wherever the wind chose to blow. At the end of the day, as adventures all passed, the Renches stood close in the soft evening cast. “Quite a day,” someone whispered. “Quite a trip,” someone said. “What a story to dream as we tumble to bed.”
Our 2025 Christmas Card
And that is just a glimpse into our fun-filled adventures this past year. By the time this video posts, we will have sent out our Christmas cards. On the inside, it unfolds to a bigger version with the Dr. Seuss–style story. This is one of the weirdest Christmas cards we have ever done, a big booklet thing; it helps to have the printer. It talks about the tuk-tuk ride, which we did in the Philippines when we went there in February. AI helped with this story and helped generate the pictures of our tuk-tuk ride, not just through the Philippines, though; it took us on all kinds of adventures. There are beach photos. Charlotte on the paddleboard was actually on another vacation, not in the Philippines; that one was in Branson, Missouri. But jumping off the rock was a picture from the Philippines, a beautiful turquoise lagoon there. That was incredible. The same with Gwen’s coffee drink. Then there is the picture of arm-wrestling Grandpa. My dad had a stroke this year, for those who do not know, but he has been recovering well. This was a picture of Abe arm-wrestling Grandpa, I do not know if it was in the hospital or the rehab facility, but Grandpa still won. I think he still had his strength for arm wrestling. There was also a picture of them going bowling. I think 154 was his high, and they bowled pretty much every day, because it was free for kids, and the parents just had to buy shoe rentals or something like that. Because it was such a good deal, they were going all the time, and Abe got really good this summer. That is where that is from. Then the picture of Charlotte talks about her starting a food stand. She has been selling meals that she and my wife have been cooking, and it has been a huge success already. It has helped pay for their trip to Indiana coming up next year. That is her little entrepreneurial business adventure that she is starting and growing. Then the pictures of them in their flower girl dresses: that was the beautiful, beautiful wedding of Brandon and Naomi Roman this past year. I am excited for them to spend their first Christmas together as a married couple. The sandcastle that particular day was an octopus I was carving. And last Christmas, I believe, we were given the gift of a hot air balloon ride right there in our valley. That was such a fun experience; I just loved it so much. And then there is the funny AI-generated photo on the front.
By the way, if you are new here and you have made it this far in the video, congratulations. I am Pastor Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. Since we have been married, my wife and I have liked to send out an annual update to everyone, and we have done it in lots of creative ways, including a murder mystery, a choose-your-own-adventure story, and now a Dr. Seuss story. So I wanted to go back over a few of the past years. That was our 2025 story, the tuk-tuk ride.
Christmas Cards Past
In the past we have done some other things. This was our murder mystery from 2015, the most ridiculous story. One time Abe had torn apart his stuffed animal, and there were remains of the stuffed animal all over the room, so I wrote a murder mystery as though monsters had attacked the room, and we were the detectives trying to figure out whodunit. That was 2015. 2016 was a simple card that said, “You are bumping through the crowds at the county fair when you notice a booth you have never seen before. It looks like a small circus tent with a flap for a door. The sign says ‘The Integration Experience,’ and the strange man standing out front is saying, ‘Come in! Come in! We are about to start!’ Do you go in and see what it is about, or do you ignore him and move to the next booth? You choose what happens next.” To begin your adventure, you visited a web link that took you to a page with different options: “Sure, why not?” or “Keep walking past.” If you kept walking past, they tried to entice you to come in, and you entered the tent, or you could go back and choose the original option, “Sure, why not?” “The man looks like a cross between Albert Einstein and Dr. Frankenstein, but the experience seems more interesting than deep-fried apple pies,” so you say, “Why not?” and enter. There were different options along the way, leading to family updates, ministry updates, church activities, and all of that. So that year’s Christmas gift was a fun adventure people could go on if they wanted.
If people did not want to read through the entire adventure, there was a little update on the back of the postcard we sent in 2017, just a simple little update. I wanted to share our funny family photo here. It is fun to see the kids grow over the years. This is on the front porch of my parents’ house, with all these tiny little kids. Boy, they sure grow up fast, and the family has grown since then. It is really funny to see everyone there. The next one was 2018, my very first Trump Christmas letter. There are a couple of photos on it; we shared more photos on our Facebook page each year, but this was written in the style of Trump: “Dear people, believe me, this was the greatest year we have ever had.” The entire thing was in the voice of Trump. As you read through it: “Gwen is our baby, and she says so all the time. I tell her all the time, I tell her, ‘You are such a big girl.'” That was our Trump update, and there was the front cover of the postcard and the growth of the kids through the years: Abe starting kindergarten, and our little family photo from Easter. Not the greatest photo, but it is there. Next was 2019, just a simple two-sided mailing with some of the trips we took that year and a collage of photos. It is fun remembering our kids from all those years ago and seeing them grow up. We had Disney passes that year; instead of Christmas gifts we did one big family gift, so we spent a lot of time at Disney, and there are a lot of photos from Disney. That was a really, really fun and memorable year. Then 2020, again a two-sided mailing, and the kids grew even more. “A year of sweetness,” we said. There they are, growing up, continuing school, doing fun adventures together as a family: the continuation of our Disney passes, beach trips, first grade and third grade starting, all kinds of fun things, since we are a family that does family adventures all the time. Oh yeah, there is our hike at Zion, some horseback riding; that was a really fun year.
Let us see what the next one is. 2021: a church transition. This is when Dad retired and we took over as pastor. There were some family updates and simpler photos that year, but there was a fourth-grade trip to the Capitol and then the transition-photo Sunday. That family photo is much different now, so many years later; the kids have all grown up and more babies have been added to the mix. It is fun to see the family expand. Here is the Indiana family, on one of the trips we took out to Indiana, which was in our Christmas update, among various trips. The next one… 2023? No, this is 2022. There was our front cover, “Rench for 2022.” That was the first full year of pastoring. Each page was dedicated to a different kid: Charlotte got her page, Gwen got her page. There are pictures from our Durango missions trip, and some general family updates. That year’s sandcastle exhibit was the shark on the beach there. Then our road trip to Utah, with some RVs; that was such a fun trip. There were some redwoods and Yosemite waterfalls; another great year. 2023: a couple of years ago, we went to Mexico as a family vacation. The kids are getting bigger and bigger as the years go on, and those trips to Mexico were such a fun time. Again, each kid got their own page with a little update on what they were doing. I was proud to have started thirty-second grade that year. Charlotte was starting fourth, Gwen was starting second, and Abe was starting sixth grade. Then there were the various ministry trips and family vacations we went on, and that year’s sandcastle; I took a sandcastle-building class where the teacher taught us to do some columns and other things. I love my sandcastles; those are fun. And that is not our church; that is the Hollywood Bowl, at a really special outdoor concert we went to. That was 2023. Where is 2024? There it is. Last year was the reinstatement of the Trump card, with yet bigger family photos. That was our associate pastor’s wedding, which we did in Pensacola, so that was an exciting year, and “Trump” read us the family update again. I guess every year we have to have some kind of castle update; my wife put that particular castle on a Father’s Day puzzle she gave me this year.
And last, this is the 2025 one we sent out. Here are the actual photos all the Dr. Seuss pictures were based on; this is the inside, as you open it up. On this side are the weird photos of Gwendolyn, and on this side are some more normal ones. In this one at the top right, she celebrated her birthday on the airplane. We were on our way to the Philippines, and we crossed over midnight, so it became February 18th, and then about an hour later we crossed the international date line, and it was already February 19th. So she had only a one-hour birthday party on the plane; that was her claim to fame this year. This is Charlotte’s page: a beautiful young lady, doing well, faithful to invite her friends to church, and just so sweet. Abe is full of life and growing as a teen young man. He finished reading his Bible all the way through this year, and I am really proud of him for that. Then more family photos, the different adventures we have been on, and the things we spent time together on this past year. So that is an overview of about the past ten years of Christmas cards. I wanted to share those with you and wish you a merry Christmas this season. I am so thankful for our church, and so thankful to meet some friends outside our church as well. I just wanted to share that with you. God bless you this Christmas season.
