Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot.
But the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.
--The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
I tried to lay off, really I did, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take down that staple of middle class suburban life, the Generic Christmas Letter in Lieu of a Real Christmas Card.
Now I realize I'm on shaky ground here, as a lot of you are adherents to this puzzling ritual. But if Daily Affirmations stands for anything, its truth. Or making fun of the less fortunate-I haven't quite decided yet.
Frankly, I have always found these things a little off-putting and impersonal. Yet, at the same time I must concede they are no less impersonal than the pre-printed sentiment in nearly all Christmas cards. That explains why I include some unique written message to each and every lucky few of you to whom I send Christmas cards. Usually something along the lines of "Merry Christmas. Stay away from my house." I also accept that these generic letters serve an ostensibly reasonable purpose-updating friends about your life during the past year (that, notably, you haven't bothered to as much as pick up the phone and say hi in an entire year). But while that rationale may have had some justification back when you had to wait for the Pony Express or the Wells Fargo Wagon to deliver the mail once a week, that's not so true in the e-mail age. Lets face it, if your friend hasn't bothered to contact you in an entire year in this electronic age, even to reply "Good one" to your 50th blonde joke mass e-mail of the week, you may want to rethink your spot in the pecking order. Besides, the more appropriate way to update friends about your life is to start a blog, thereby avoiding the unpleasantness of actually talking to them. By unpleasantness, I mean chance encounters at the mall or the store along the lines of: "Hey, whatcha been up to? Not much. Yeah, me too. Cool. Umm...I think I left my kids locked in the car with the windows up, so I need to go now. OKbye." NB: without clearing it with me first, my family appears to have, in a nod to Shakespeare, created a new word: "Okbye" which, translated, I gather is just "OK, goodbye" said at auctioneer speed. I think what it actually means is: "OK, you're done talking now."
Anyway, my real objection to these kinds of letters is not so much their impersonal nature but their oppressive upbeat message. They are Lena Guerrero resume versions of your actual life, omitting nearly everything remotely negative (or anything negative that doesn't end in a positive, e.g. "little Billy slipped at the pool and cracked his skull, but the resulting brain trauma miraculously triggered some hidden brain location and he is now a certified genius."). When is the last time you read a Christmas letter along the lines of "Boy its been a challenging year. Pa got out of prison, and we're thankful for that, but he's in a halfway house for the next six months, plus, we have to move when he gets back home because our house is within 300 feet of a school. Ma lost her job at the meat-packing plant, so we've been just eating the 'Helper" without the rejected hamburger meat Ma used to bring home. (Homage to Cousin Eddie in Vacation). She got a new job down at the nursing home washing the coma patients, but tripped over Old Man Davis' feeding tube one night and tore her hamstring."
No, most of these letters make your own life seem sad and pathetic by comparison. I suppose its possible that my life really is sad and pathetic, so any letter at all would have the same result. Anyway, there's always the heroic Dad, fresh off a promotion to some glorious job making lots of money and doing lots of Important Things. Mom usually is too, or at least has some really altruistic, "save the world and still have time to drop the kids off for soccer practice" lifestyle. The kids all go to Andover or Exeter, and have been admitted to Harvard even though they're only sophomores, or they're the only kid in their kindergarten class who's mastered advanced algebra. They tell you about their fantastic vacations to sunny places with unpronounceable names like Ibiza or the Seychelles, and live in three story houses near crystal clear lakes. These relentlessly positive diatribes generally leave me feeling like a total failure. The "loser" pangs shoot up my spine on cue as I turn to notice the piled-up laundry withering on my spare bed and see the layer of leaves growing on the lawn outside my window. Where's my house by the lake, and my perfect wife, and my perfect kids? In short, I wind up feeling like the kid at school who brings a pine cone for show and tell that he picked up from his neighbor's yard while waiting for the bus, when everyone else shows up with their sweet new toys to drop on foolz.
So with all apologies, I generally just hit the highlights of these things. First I notice who its from, and make a mental note "still alive" and "still on Christmas card list." Then I look for any evidence of a personal touch, like "Hi Chris" or "Merry Christmas dickweed" in handwriting. Any little sign of uniqueness that no one else got but me.
In the spirit of the season, where turnabout is fair play, I'm posting my own generic Christmas greeting. Hope you all enjoy catching up with my life over the past year.
Dear (Insert Name Here):
I tried to lay off, really I did, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take down that staple of middle class suburban life, the Generic Christmas Letter in Lieu of a Real Christmas Card.
Now I realize I'm on shaky ground here, as a lot of you are adherents to this puzzling ritual. But if Daily Affirmations stands for anything, its truth. Or making fun of the less fortunate-I haven't quite decided yet.
Frankly, I have always found these things a little off-putting and impersonal. Yet, at the same time I must concede they are no less impersonal than the pre-printed sentiment in nearly all Christmas cards. That explains why I include some unique written message to each and every lucky few of you to whom I send Christmas cards. Usually something along the lines of "Merry Christmas. Stay away from my house." I also accept that these generic letters serve an ostensibly reasonable purpose-updating friends about your life during the past year (that, notably, you haven't bothered to as much as pick up the phone and say hi in an entire year). But while that rationale may have had some justification back when you had to wait for the Pony Express or the Wells Fargo Wagon to deliver the mail once a week, that's not so true in the e-mail age. Lets face it, if your friend hasn't bothered to contact you in an entire year in this electronic age, even to reply "Good one" to your 50th blonde joke mass e-mail of the week, you may want to rethink your spot in the pecking order. Besides, the more appropriate way to update friends about your life is to start a blog, thereby avoiding the unpleasantness of actually talking to them. By unpleasantness, I mean chance encounters at the mall or the store along the lines of: "Hey, whatcha been up to? Not much. Yeah, me too. Cool. Umm...I think I left my kids locked in the car with the windows up, so I need to go now. OKbye." NB: without clearing it with me first, my family appears to have, in a nod to Shakespeare, created a new word: "Okbye" which, translated, I gather is just "OK, goodbye" said at auctioneer speed. I think what it actually means is: "OK, you're done talking now."
Anyway, my real objection to these kinds of letters is not so much their impersonal nature but their oppressive upbeat message. They are Lena Guerrero resume versions of your actual life, omitting nearly everything remotely negative (or anything negative that doesn't end in a positive, e.g. "little Billy slipped at the pool and cracked his skull, but the resulting brain trauma miraculously triggered some hidden brain location and he is now a certified genius."). When is the last time you read a Christmas letter along the lines of "Boy its been a challenging year. Pa got out of prison, and we're thankful for that, but he's in a halfway house for the next six months, plus, we have to move when he gets back home because our house is within 300 feet of a school. Ma lost her job at the meat-packing plant, so we've been just eating the 'Helper" without the rejected hamburger meat Ma used to bring home. (Homage to Cousin Eddie in Vacation). She got a new job down at the nursing home washing the coma patients, but tripped over Old Man Davis' feeding tube one night and tore her hamstring."
No, most of these letters make your own life seem sad and pathetic by comparison. I suppose its possible that my life really is sad and pathetic, so any letter at all would have the same result. Anyway, there's always the heroic Dad, fresh off a promotion to some glorious job making lots of money and doing lots of Important Things. Mom usually is too, or at least has some really altruistic, "save the world and still have time to drop the kids off for soccer practice" lifestyle. The kids all go to Andover or Exeter, and have been admitted to Harvard even though they're only sophomores, or they're the only kid in their kindergarten class who's mastered advanced algebra. They tell you about their fantastic vacations to sunny places with unpronounceable names like Ibiza or the Seychelles, and live in three story houses near crystal clear lakes. These relentlessly positive diatribes generally leave me feeling like a total failure. The "loser" pangs shoot up my spine on cue as I turn to notice the piled-up laundry withering on my spare bed and see the layer of leaves growing on the lawn outside my window. Where's my house by the lake, and my perfect wife, and my perfect kids? In short, I wind up feeling like the kid at school who brings a pine cone for show and tell that he picked up from his neighbor's yard while waiting for the bus, when everyone else shows up with their sweet new toys to drop on foolz.
So with all apologies, I generally just hit the highlights of these things. First I notice who its from, and make a mental note "still alive" and "still on Christmas card list." Then I look for any evidence of a personal touch, like "Hi Chris" or "Merry Christmas dickweed" in handwriting. Any little sign of uniqueness that no one else got but me.
In the spirit of the season, where turnabout is fair play, I'm posting my own generic Christmas greeting. Hope you all enjoy catching up with my life over the past year.
Dear (Insert Name Here):
Hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season. I know my life has been spectacular these past 12 months. The year started off on a high note, when I attended the Playboy Mansion New Year's Party as Hef's personal guest, and then flew on Jay Z's private jet after midnight along with Beyonce and Gwen Stefani to Vegas to catch the Wynn's after-hours party. The whole first of the year was a whirlwind, what with going to the Super Bowl (attended the Maxim party and saw the game in the Colts' owner's suite), Mardi Gras (was the first ever honorary King of Momus), the Final Four in Atlanta, Fashion Week in Milan (Gisele and Alessandra practically begged me to come-it was kind of embarrassing), attending the White House State Dinner for Queen Elizabeth II, and culminating in the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
Love has found me too. After a brief fling with Minnie Driver and a somewhat ill-advised weekend in the Hamptons with Tara Reid, I have finally found the love of my life. She's a famous actress who values her privacy so I can't write her full name, but lets just say that Jessica S. and I have been tearing it up the past few months.
Work has been amazing. Sidebar: are you as over the word "amazing" as I am? Sorry, but few things are, in reality, "amazing." The fact that your four year old kid can use the bathroom at day care without the teacher helping does not qualify as "amazing." I won 12 jury trials, argued five cases at the Supreme Court, and closed three separate billion dollar leveraged buyouts. In between I wrote an article comparing the civil law and common law treatment of mortgage securities, for which I won the very first Nobel Prize in Law. My firm, Reeder, P.C., opened a new office in Siena, bringing us to 12 offices throughout the world.
I built a new country house in Taos. I just love the simple lifestyle there. It goes well with my houses in Beverly Hills, Tuscany, Bali, and my little cottage by the Shannon in County Limerick. I hope you can come visit me sometime at the new place. Be sure to call first of course.
We're looking forward to trips next year to China and Brazil, where Bono and I hope to meet with President Lula to talk about deforestation of the Amazon Basin. I'm also excited about my new ABC-TV reality show starting next year-"Kiss the Barrister." Hope you'll all watch.
I built a new country house in Taos. I just love the simple lifestyle there. It goes well with my houses in Beverly Hills, Tuscany, Bali, and my little cottage by the Shannon in County Limerick. I hope you can come visit me sometime at the new place. Be sure to call first of course.
We're looking forward to trips next year to China and Brazil, where Bono and I hope to meet with President Lula to talk about deforestation of the Amazon Basin. I'm also excited about my new ABC-TV reality show starting next year-"Kiss the Barrister." Hope you'll all watch.
God Bless You All!
P.S. Even though I was basking in the glow of a rare prime-time Texans victory, the Viva Viagra commercial nearly ruined it. If I ever get excited enough about viagra (pun intended) to have a hootenanny with six guys, don't even bother with the intervention. Just put me out on an ice floe like some aging Inuit warrior.
3 comments:
I was horrified by the Viva Viagra commercial last night. Good grief! p.s. While I love getting your Christmas card every year--especially now that I know I'm one of the "lucky" few--I was wondering if you bought a lifetime supply of the same card at CostCo? I'm pretty sure you've sent the exact same card for the last 3 years. And one year, you even sent me two--exactly the same and they arrive about a week apart. I counted myself extra lucky that year.
hey chris, i'll swap you some of my costco cards for yours.
(first openid comment!)
I hate those %^($@# impersonal Christmas messages, too! WHY do people bother? The only ones I read are the satirical ones - like yours. I once got a serious one from a single female co-worker that went MONTH BY FREAKIN MONTH through her year outlining her ups and downs with anti-depressants and the revolving door of ever-more inappropriate men in her life. It was the most depressing thing I ever read. Why would she think anyone - ANYONE OTHER THAN HER SHRINK would want to read it??? Ick.
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