T’is the season, and Christmas cards and e-greetings have begun arriving at our house. I just hope we don’t get any of those Christmas letters folks send. They sort of wilt my Christmas cheer.
You know the kind I mean. They’re start out “Dear Friends,” so you know the writer wasn’t thinking specifically of you when she wrote the letter, which she has either snail mailed or emailed to everyone on her list. In fact, you may only have met the writer briefly in an airport somewhere and exchanged contact information, but you will now be on her Christmas list forever, always wondering who all the people are that she’s writing about.
Then you’ll read something like this:
“Well, it has been a wonderful year for our family, and we want to share our joy with you. Claxton (reader assumes this is the writer’s husband, or perhaps her St. Bernard) was named chairman of the board of his super prosperous Fortune 500 company. With his always generous spirit, he’s buying us a second home in the Hamptons with his huge Christmas bonus. We hope to have it redecorated and ready for our big Christmas celebration next week!
“Our daughter Gabriella has just signed a contract to appear in her first film. Unfortunately, she had to give up her career as ambassador to the nation of Bouganvilla for this new opportunity, and she won’t be able to spend as much time with her handsome fiancé, a wealthy Greek shipping magnate, but one can’t have everything, can one?
“Claxton Jr. (either a son or perhaps Claxton the St. Bernard’s puppy?) graduated from Trinity College, Oxford, (that’s in England, not Mississippi) in May. Before taking a job at one of the most prestigious law firms in New York, he tramped around the world for several months, taking several photos that were bought by National Geographic for an obscene amount of money. Junior, generous like his father, is donating his photography earnings to Joe Biden for a few sessions at the Memory Training Academy.
“Between redecorating the new house and serving as president of several national charity organizations, I’ve only had time to finish writing my third best-selling novel this year. I must get busy!
“Now that you know what a fab year we’ve had, I wish you a merry little Christmas yourself!”
It’s sort of a Yuletide buzz kill to read these glowing family histories and find out how far behind we are in accomplishments this year, but I suppose I could crank out some kind of a Christmas letter too. It would go something like this:
“What a year 2020 has been at the McLean homestead!
“You’ll be glad to know that our newest dog, Lizzy the Lab, has stopped chewing on the carport, and we expect it will continue to hold up and not fall on the car. . . if her prodigious appetite for wood and brick doesn’t re-surface.
“ For this year’s family Christmas card, all three grandchildren actually put down their phones, faced the camera, displayed hair that had been reasonably well brushed, and kept the eye-rolling to a minimum. We are proud of them and hoping this is a sign of good grooming and better eye health to come!
“My artistic talent has really blossomed this year. You must drive by and see the patio set I rescued from the neighbor’s curb. I recreated it with a can of green spray paint, and it looks ready for HGTV.
“We also redecorated two rooms in our house during the year. Well, when we get the dining room wall re-plastered where we knocked a few extra holes in it trying to hang pictures last weekend, we’ll call it redecorated.
“So maybe we’re not quite ready for HGTV, but we are semi-redecorated, the carport is indeed still clinging to the house at this moment, and Lizzy has almost finished burying the old pair of men’s briefs she stole somewhere and has been chewing on. Thus, hopefully they will be out of sight in time for our less-than-huge Christmas celebration!
“We don’t have to go to all the trouble of traveling to our second home in the Hamptons for the holidays because we don’t have one. But that is another piece of good luck, because my husband, who is the CEO of yardwork and odd jobs at our house, would divorce me if he had to hang one more picture in one more house. And all three of our dogs hyperventilate and/or vomit when you put them in a car, which minimizes our travel to the Hamptons quite a bit.
“And by the way, I survived COVID-19 this year, becoming a participant of the biggest story of the year so I’m feeling pretty darned successful.
“Friends, there’s 2020 in a nutshell. I hope your year was just as good but not too much better because hearing about it will give me an inferiority complex. Merry Christmas!
