I would LOVE to send out one of those “Christmas Letters” to my friends, but honestly, I don’t want to bring anybody down! This one couple we know has sent us a Christmas letter every year for the past 12 years and frankly, they are so depressing that for a while there I was considering changing my religion, or worse, moving and not leaving a forwarding address!
Each year, it was the same thing: their home-schooled (of course!!), piano-playing, karate practicing, Green Space champion award- winning, and smarter-than-any-kids-who-have-ever-lived children are nothing but divinely phenomenal. The whole family managed once again to travel all over the world, sometimes even two or three times in one year; either the husband or wife (or both) won an award for something, and it was nothing but blue skies and sunny days for their family, by gosh! It’s enough to give me serious gas, crossed eyes, and to make me consider turning in my membership card to the Human Race.
In my family, in any given year at least three of my four grown children are not speaking to one another. I consider it miraculous some of them have managed to learn speak the English language at all (REAL English, not that texting shorthand stuff – u no?) and that at least two of them actually know more words than merely, “I’m broke – please send cash”. As for travel, with my husband’s and my physical challenges, I seriously applaud him for his continually getting up in the morning and going in to work every day, day in and day out. He’s a chain-smoking executive with some ugly breathing issues, and has high blood pressure, a foul temper, and more arthritis in his body than he has bones! And, as for me, it’s a red letter day when I can crutch-walk to my car and actually drive for a few miles before my legs go totally numb from the pain (Yeah…I know. Only those of us with AVN know what I mean!) . “Oh, wow! I made it to Shop Rite and back!” Now, that’s newsworthy in our house!
As for winning contests or awards, my family is right up there jockeying for the top spot. I can just see it in my family newsletter:
“I beat not one, but two traffic tickets this year! My prize hosta plant would have won a local gardening contest, but it got turned into a tossed salad by a furious groundhog being chased by my over-zealous dog. My husband did not slap our well-meaning but foot–in-mouth young neighbor silly, the young guy who goofed and referred to him as ‘an older man’ Life was good to us in 2010!”
And, as for my kids and grandkids, well…what can I say? My kids have to answer for their own sins, mistakes, and what-not, but my grandkids are perfect! Now, I ask you: how can I put that in a newsletter? Who would believe me?? Hey…these people know my family! I don’t stand a chance in the bragging department, even if it is really and truly true that my grandkids are perfect! There just isn’t enough else to hold people’s interest or to make it digestible. So, once again, it was simple snowmen or Christmas scenery Christmas cards that got sent out by me this year. They are safe – they say it all and simply that all is right with my family’s world.
I suppose it’s true that family Christmas newsletters do serve a purpose, however. They might be the motivators that keep us striving for that elusive quality called “hope.” Each year I build up hope that someone in our family will do something simply amazing, something I can force down others’ gullets with a smug, self satisfied, “There! I told you so!” grin at Christmas-time: “Put that in your pipe, Santa, and smoke it!”
All I can do is simply wish others a wonderful holiday and just go on loving my family for who they are and for what they mean to me. If others can’t see the greatness in them without my having to say so, then that’s their loss. I know how great they are -- and just as importantly, they know how great they are -- and really, that’s what counts.
So, if this is your lot in life – getting those Christmas family newsletters which only missing feature is a diamond-studded, dripping, oozing 24 carat gold plating -- don’t let it worry you. If it makes others feel better seeing in print what they believe in their minds, then more power to them. If that’s what they need to do to convince themselves and make themselves feel good in their hearts, then in all seriousness, God bless them. As for me and mine, we admit we are human, and we are proud to be human. We will continue to take life as it comes and to muddle through somehow. We will take the bad with the good, toss out what we don’t need and keep the rest, learn from our mistakes, and then hope for the best. So far, it’s a system that has worked fairly well. It’s the only one we know and I can’t see writing that in a newsletter year after year. Besides, it’s not really ‘news’ – it’s just the way life is, and that’s good enough for me and mine. Honestly, if you don’t ‘get it’ or understand it by the age of 20, then you never will.
Please…put down the pen, and have a very Merry Christmas!
Maybe I'll just send out a photo of my horse.....