The Holiday Howdy
Okay, I will probably somehow stick my foot in my mouth at some point during this post, so I will apologize in advance. In other words, that's a shout out to all of you who send out Christmas letters with your cards: It's nice to hear from you. Really.
This is the second year my family (reality: me) has sent out our Holiday Howdy, a quirky and odd little newsletter, which was birthed from a "perfect storm" situation two years ago. Among other things, I was having problems finding a decent Christmas card. I have a tendency to get sidetracked by the publishing programs on my computer. I was also bored. I'm bored a lot, which is why I now blog. I also send out the cards. Just like I generally set up the tree. And dye the eggs. And buy the pumpkins. But I've been sharing the wealth lately on all of this. I'm tired of being a one-woman holiday show.
If you have not guessed already, this blog is brought to you by Mr. and Mrs. Scrooge, an all-purpose anti-holiday couple that eschews basically every holiday except maybe Veteran's Day. And yes, the rumor is true. We do generally take our Christmas tree down on December 25.
Anyway, thus the Holiday Howdy was born. I made a vow to myself in doing so. I would never, ever use it to brag about our previous year. It would become the Seinfeld of holiday newsletters. It would be about nothing.
That first year, I wrote about our septic system woes and the fact that we had a failed attempt at adopting a used dog, as viewed by our two cats. That would be the dog that was advertised to us as a "boxer," but in reality was a pit bull with jaws that opened wider than the hood of my Prius. I wrote about the fact that we'd spent thousands of dollars on two master's degrees and my husband - who hates going to school - had spent 23 of his 35 years as a student. There was no real mention of career aspirations or what he planned to do with those degrees or what had prompted him to go back to school in the first place.
I mentioned what I was doing simply because I had a hole on the back page. But I also threw in that I have only balanced my checkbook three times in 15 years. Which is quite true, I might add.
I do not have a good track record when it comes to traditional holiday letters. I once wrote a last-minute Christmas card to one of the women who stood up in our wedding. We'd met at camp in high school and lived on opposite sides of the state. We had a fantastic friendship maintained for years through letter writing. This was all pre-email and our letters would stretch to five or six pages longhand, sometimes twice a week.
Anyway, when I sent out the card on December 23, I wrote something that said, "Instead of boring you with one of those self-absorbed, Xeroxed holiday letters, just know that nothing's new, everything's fine and I'll write later."
On December 24, I received her card. Which was really a self-absorbed, Xeroxed holiday letter. The friendship never really recovered. I haven't heard from her in nearly a decade.
This year, there were more than a few in our mailbox. I do like reading them, but while doing so, my evil twin takes over. I start to dissect them, turn the words over and upside down. I peak behind the meanings. I'm a read-between-the-liner. I'm a doubting Tomasina.
The more bubbly, the more blessed, the more enthused the letter, the more inclined I am to think that all is not right in your world. If I can hear the trumpets of heaven playing as I unfold your letter, it's "uh-oh" time for me. My little card basket (something I would never buy, but was my Christmas gift last year from the Littlest Scrooge) has a cacophony of holy instruments playing in it this year.
A very good, longtime friend of mine writes a great holiday letter. It usually arrives after Christmas. It's funny, it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's highly realistic. It's her voice. When I read it, it makes me laugh. She writes about things like spitup and dueling children. And then she'll throw in something nice that happened to her family. Her life is not all rose petals and champagne, but it's real and it's genuine, just like our friendship which has sustained itself since middle school and now stretches between three states. She's the kind of friend that you like hearing from, whether it's a Xeroxed letter or a few sentences scrawled on the bottom of the card, along with an accidental chocolate thumbprint smudge.
Or a Holiday Howdy, printed upside down on the back because you can't remember which way the #@*$)@_ paper goes in the printer if you want to do double-sided copies.
This is the second year my family (reality: me) has sent out our Holiday Howdy, a quirky and odd little newsletter, which was birthed from a "perfect storm" situation two years ago. Among other things, I was having problems finding a decent Christmas card. I have a tendency to get sidetracked by the publishing programs on my computer. I was also bored. I'm bored a lot, which is why I now blog. I also send out the cards. Just like I generally set up the tree. And dye the eggs. And buy the pumpkins. But I've been sharing the wealth lately on all of this. I'm tired of being a one-woman holiday show.
If you have not guessed already, this blog is brought to you by Mr. and Mrs. Scrooge, an all-purpose anti-holiday couple that eschews basically every holiday except maybe Veteran's Day. And yes, the rumor is true. We do generally take our Christmas tree down on December 25.
Anyway, thus the Holiday Howdy was born. I made a vow to myself in doing so. I would never, ever use it to brag about our previous year. It would become the Seinfeld of holiday newsletters. It would be about nothing.
That first year, I wrote about our septic system woes and the fact that we had a failed attempt at adopting a used dog, as viewed by our two cats. That would be the dog that was advertised to us as a "boxer," but in reality was a pit bull with jaws that opened wider than the hood of my Prius. I wrote about the fact that we'd spent thousands of dollars on two master's degrees and my husband - who hates going to school - had spent 23 of his 35 years as a student. There was no real mention of career aspirations or what he planned to do with those degrees or what had prompted him to go back to school in the first place.
I mentioned what I was doing simply because I had a hole on the back page. But I also threw in that I have only balanced my checkbook three times in 15 years. Which is quite true, I might add.
I do not have a good track record when it comes to traditional holiday letters. I once wrote a last-minute Christmas card to one of the women who stood up in our wedding. We'd met at camp in high school and lived on opposite sides of the state. We had a fantastic friendship maintained for years through letter writing. This was all pre-email and our letters would stretch to five or six pages longhand, sometimes twice a week.
Anyway, when I sent out the card on December 23, I wrote something that said, "Instead of boring you with one of those self-absorbed, Xeroxed holiday letters, just know that nothing's new, everything's fine and I'll write later."
On December 24, I received her card. Which was really a self-absorbed, Xeroxed holiday letter. The friendship never really recovered. I haven't heard from her in nearly a decade.
This year, there were more than a few in our mailbox. I do like reading them, but while doing so, my evil twin takes over. I start to dissect them, turn the words over and upside down. I peak behind the meanings. I'm a read-between-the-liner. I'm a doubting Tomasina.
The more bubbly, the more blessed, the more enthused the letter, the more inclined I am to think that all is not right in your world. If I can hear the trumpets of heaven playing as I unfold your letter, it's "uh-oh" time for me. My little card basket (something I would never buy, but was my Christmas gift last year from the Littlest Scrooge) has a cacophony of holy instruments playing in it this year.
A very good, longtime friend of mine writes a great holiday letter. It usually arrives after Christmas. It's funny, it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's highly realistic. It's her voice. When I read it, it makes me laugh. She writes about things like spitup and dueling children. And then she'll throw in something nice that happened to her family. Her life is not all rose petals and champagne, but it's real and it's genuine, just like our friendship which has sustained itself since middle school and now stretches between three states. She's the kind of friend that you like hearing from, whether it's a Xeroxed letter or a few sentences scrawled on the bottom of the card, along with an accidental chocolate thumbprint smudge.
Or a Holiday Howdy, printed upside down on the back because you can't remember which way the #@*$)@_ paper goes in the printer if you want to do double-sided copies.
posted by The Arendts at 5:31 PM
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