Dearest Loved Ones (that’s you, my loyal readers),
It is time yet again when I sit down and write the annual Christmas letter. You are possibly wondering why, in the era of Facebook, why I would resort to such a quaint and antiquated tradition as sending you a holiday card with a long info-dump of my fabulous year, copied onto a sheet of common copy paper. Afterall, nobody saves the amazing milestones and accomplishments of their storybook lives for a year-end round-up any more. They just post them in real-time.
Me, I prefer the only slightly less impersonal approach of a physical form letter (we’re pretending that you got this in an actual letter, instead of via e-mail. Work with me here.) mailed in a festive card which arrived in your mail, to the status update that will probably get buried in your newsfeed, because, let’s face it, Facebook thinks we don’t really like each other all that much and has decided you don’t really want to see my updates.
A feature of the form letter is an overly exhaustive review of all the things the letter writer and their family has accomplished since the last letter. You force yourself to read it even though you are thinking to yourself that the writer is a complete narcissist, and you wish you were done reading it already so you can throw it in the trash. There aren’t even any cute baby pictures in here to make it more palatable.
One of the highlights of my year came in March, where my sister and her family came in from out of state to visit. We did some of the usual touristy things, and you’ve probably already tuned this part out because you don’t know them and I have, yet again, failed to give you cute pictures.
After this was Denver Comic Con, at which I was again a volunteer, and I had the usual adventures in customer service, got involved in a pitched light saber battle with my sister, and had random encounters with celebrities who will not remember them. You might’ve seen the pictures on Facebook.
Then there was the big drama of the year, which was the infamous car accident, which set-off the fight with the insurance company, and the adventure of the rental car. The conclusion of that adventure was that my car was fixed, and is doing great.
(Of course, since we are pretending this came to you in print, you’re probably scratching your head about the randomly underlined bits of text, which are making you wonder if I’ve abandoned my good sense of typography and taken up bad habits from some creator of fanatical propaganda pamphlets. Instead, this is looking like an awkward highlights reel clipshow.)
This is the part where I tell you about my exciting new projects for 2017. I am mostly hoping you ignore this part of the letter.
The good news is that I’m coming to the end of a standard sheet of letter copy paper, and have no wish to spend the money to make these letters double-sided, so, I’ll let you off the hook early, and let you get to the “put the letter in the trash” part of this exercise.
I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season, filled with light and love, and joy and laughter. Thanks for reading through to the end.