Christmas letter? Bah Humbug!

I have been working on our Christmas cards lately and I am at a loss this year when it comes to what to say in “the letter”.

I know, I know, no one likes those letters that come with Christmas cards. Well, no one but me. I love them. I love seeing photos of my friends and their kids and I love knowing what they’ve been up to. I don’t even mind that a few of my friends (not you, of course) brag like a Christmas card is the boarding pass to Heaven’s airline .

And usually I don’t have any problem writing a mildly funny, self-deprecating little update on the Simonson clan. But this year is different. This year we are basically the same as we were last year, just older. Eric has the same job, I am doing the same thing I was 12 months ago, Emily is just more Emily, and Claudia just looks at the rest of us like she is stumped as to how she ended up with such a motley crew. How do I put that in a Christmas letter?

We have gone nowhere worth mentioning, we have done only mostly self-serving things with our time (okay, completely self-serving things) and we have created no new people this year.

How about this:
2006 has been a great year for the Simonson’s. With little personal upheaval to weigh on their free time, Eric and Kate were able to devote a great deal of time to watching more television. Then after almost four solid years of either being pregnant or nursing Kate has rediscovered the joys of alcohol and has decided to make the New Year’s resolution of developing a drinking problem. This may be the one resolution she is able to keep.

Emily and Claudia continue doing a bang up job of turning into decent human beings despite their parent’s best efforts. One shining parental example this year: Emily started preschool in September, and while she was terribly worried about it she felt a little better when Kate told her that she should try it and if she didn’t like it she didn’t have to continue going. True to the deal Emily went and decided 2007 would be a better year for school. Only after she announced her decision to wait until next year to try again did Eric mention that it was his policy that kids who sign up for preschool go to preschool. And so began three long months of “peel sobbing Emily off of Kate at the door of preschool.”

I am at a loss. So, when our card comes with an empty sheet of paper inside, the few people on my list who read this will know it is because we are awful, awful people who watch too much TV and forgot to work the whole “united front” thing out ahead of time.

Happy Holidays.