I’ve been
sending self-depreciating attempts at humor otherwise known as my Christmas
letters out for so long that it’s hard to stop even though this year I planned
on doing just that. Then I ran into several people at a party who mentioned how
much they look forward to my letters so I went home and whipped one up for 2017.
If you’ve been reading my blog this past year you might recognize themes in the
letter below but people on my mailing list don’t know about my online life so
they won’t spot the copy and paste sections…….
Dear Friends
and Family,
I wasn’t going to write a Christmas letter this year but I’ve been in a holiday mood and it’s hard to resist bragging about---I mean sharing all the good things that happened in my life these past twelve months.
I wasn’t going to write a Christmas letter this year but I’ve been in a holiday mood and it’s hard to resist bragging about---I mean sharing all the good things that happened in my life these past twelve months.
Let’s start
with January when I spent the entire month obsessing about why two large box
stores and some smaller ones in town don’t carry light bulbs that fit inside my
refrigerator. Granted mine is fourteen years old but it felt like a vast
conspiracy was under way to sell me a new energy efficient appliance by phasing
out the bulbs with a compatible base. I finally found what I needed online, ordered
two and life was good again.
February I
bought a work-out shirt that has printed on the front: Everything Hurts and I’m
Going to Die! But I never got a chance to wear it to the ‘Move it, to Lose it’
class that I signed up for at the YMCA. I flunked the assessment test to
determine if I was strong enough to join the group.
In March I was a very bad girl who spent too much time in bed with Ben and Jerry and other comfort foods.
April: Can
you believe it, I was having trouble opening bags, jars, bottles and tuna cans!
I can’t tell you how many times I’d thought about running food containers over
to a neighbor’s house while yelling, “Help me! Help me!” Instead, I bought some
handy devices for old people and now you can be assured that I won’t starve to
death while trying to get into hermetically sealed bags, olive jars and pull-tab
cans.
May was
spent worrying about lumpy finger joints, eyelids that need lifting for better
vision, moles that grow in strange places, nipples that point toward the floor,
my fatty-fatty-two-by-four body, cataracts and conversations that go on inside
my head when I have too much time on my hands.
June, July
and August I did some serious trolling for friends down at the senior hall and
all those seeds I sowed are starting to grow. Don was my best friend for forty-two
years but the blooms of yesterday sadly fade away and it was time to find some
gal pals.
September?
Who remembers September? If you saw me then, let me know what I was doing.
October I
went to a thrift shop with my new gal pals where several of us put our purses
in one shopping cart and it was like keeping track of the president’s nuclear
codes football. “You’re in charge of the cart now.” “I’m taking charge of the
cart.” “Where’s the cart?” “I thought you had the cart.” “I thought you did!” I
was probably doing most of the worrying because in all the years of asking Don
to “keep an eye on my purse” I never could trust him not to wander off.
I spent the
entire month of November living in 1967. Not to worry, I wasn’t having a
“senior event.” I was re-reading letters I got from Vietnam and copies of
letters I had sent to the fifty penpals I had back then. I started my trip down
Memory Lane after going to a lecture given by a guy from The Center for
American War Letters and he said in the Q &A that they’d welcome my
collection. Before sending them off, I wanted to re-read them and I hardly
recognized the girl I was back then who loved to ski in the winter and sail in
the summer.
That brings me
to December and I’m immensely happy that the biggest decision I had to make this
month was whether or not to write an annual Christmas letter. Merry Christmas
and may the New Year bring us all a more peaceful world than the one we’re
leaving behind in 2017. Jean
* * * * *
To my deep embarrassment I just discovered I sent that letter out to everyone with a
typo in the very last line where I wrote “we’rge” instead of “we’re.” When will I learn to proof-read from the bottom up! I make the most mistakes in the last paragraphs of whatever I'm writing. ©
