The Annual Christmas Letter

Yesterday I got my annual Christmas letters written and ready to mail. No small feat considering my new printer won’t let me print address labels sheets, or at least I can’t figure out how to reset the margins like it says I need to do with the Avery template I’ve used for years. I started writing Christmas letters over a decade ago as a joke after getting one that was full of---frankly---bull. You know the kind; the kids were perfect in every way, the vacation super deluxe, their new house right out of Better Homes and Gardens and their bonuses from work were huge because they were just so darn good at their jobs. That year by contrast, the highlight of our lives was we managed to host a party of cardinals at the bird feeder and the car got its oil changed on schedule. Now that I’m a widow, writing my annul letter is the only Christmas tradition I still have left and that might go in a year or two. People don’t seem to exchange cards like we used to do and in many ways it’s sad that we can’t take the time once a year to touch bases with people who add or did add value to our lives. Anyway, here’s a copy of what I wrote in my letter this year and if is sounds familiar that means you’ve been coming to this blog often enough to recognize the highlights of my year.

Greetings Friends and Family! For those of us who write Christmas letters, it’s that time again when we look back over the past year and reflect on what we should include in our annual ramblings. In my first draft the best I could come up with for 2015 is I didn’t die thus the dog didn’t starve to death because there was no one left in the house to feed him. I didn’t get (seriously) sick either or do anything to get my photo on a FBI Most Wanted poster, but who wants to hear about what didn’t happen? “Wait a minute,” you might by saying, “why did she use ‘not seriously’ as an adjective to the word ‘sick’?” I’ll tell you. Because at the beginning of the year my hair was falling out at an alarming rate, I had no energy and I was so cold I felt like a Popsicle living in a freezer, then it was discovered that my thyroid levels had dropped off the radar screen. Not to worry. They’re back up now, high enough to be mistaken for a flock of geese flying over the airport. By summer I was no longer moving around like a three-toed sloth at the zoo. Did you know that a sloth’s top speed is 0.003 miles per hour? So slow algae can grow on them. The things you learn in Christmas letters!

By summer I fell into a routine of sorting and purging stuff in the house---mostly Don’s---and taking it to an auction house out in the boondocks where they photographed it all, put it online and sent me some pocket change for my efforts. I made sixteen trips, sold 672 lots and while that sounds like I did an impressive amount of downsizing, Don had so many tiny things it hardly made a difference in the house. Sorting it all, though, was like living my life in reverse because everything had a memory or a story attached. 

I did do two memorable things this year, though. One happened the day I drove into the Chevy service center to get an oil change on my Malibu and I drove out with a 2015 Trax mini SUV. Let this be a cautionary tale to anyone who is thinking about killing time in a dealership showroom while they’re working on your car out back. When the salesman asks, “How do you like your car?” keep on walking. I never should have told him about the time I couldn’t get my friend’s walker in the trunk or how I missed being part of the Gray Brigade of “cool” vehicles on the road or about the day the dog barfed on the backseat and it lost that new car smell. 

The other memorable thing I did this year was I stayed in the same Bed and Breakfast that Susan B. Anthony did back 136 years ago. Raise your hand if you knew I only had to go to Saugatuck to do that. (Thank you, Cindy for planning such a fun get-away.) And here’s another bit of trivia for you: You can’t get Wi-Fi or cellphone signals in a room with horsehair in the plastered walls. So if you want to get your teenagers off the grid, check them into the Susan B. Anthony room. I loved soaking up the women’s history in the B&B but we also got a dose of family history. While sorting boxes in the basement for the auction house, I found six cassette tapes made of my mom and dad talking (circa the early 1970s through 1984) and Don was even on one of the tapes. With wine close at hand, Cindy and I spent a couple of evenings listening to the tapes. At one point we laughed so hard I actually thought I’d pass out. That reminds me, there’s an embarrassing section on a tape that needs to be erased of me--- I’d explain but I’m running out of space.

Well that’s it, my 2015 in a nutshell but I’ve got one more thing to say: The holiday season is a time to set aside our worries and woes and let the spirit of Christmas bring us quality time with family and friends, especially the wee ones among us. So bake some cookies, hang the mistletoe, play a few games with the kids and while you’re building new memories take a little time to reminisce about holidays past and the people who are no longer with us.  

Wishing you peace and joy in your little corner of the world. Merry Christmas!