Christmas Letter

We have had requests (well, a request) for our annual Christmas letter which we have published more or less continuously since about about 1974. This letter started out as a parody of boring Christmas letters my parents were receiving and finally evolved into a parody of itself. We aren’t doing one this year. My own thinking regarding holidays is that they occur too often and I have begun a campaign, which I hope will grow exponentially, to convert all holidays to the Olympic model. I am proposing that all holidays, including birthdays and anniversaries be celebrated quadrennially. Right now, for example, Christmas sneaks up on us so quickly that we have no time to properly prepare. There are many pressures associated with the holiday season. Even though my theory that the suicide rate increases at Christmas has been
debunked it is still a nerve racking time requiring one to travel in hazardous weather and eat sugary foods. If I had four years to gear up for Christmas I could possibly get ready. And, I can only imagine my relief on December 26 with 1461 days to go until the next get together. With careful planning one year could contain Thanksgiving, the next one Christmas, followed the next year by  Halloween, and then the Fouth of July. I know I will be accused of Grinchiness. In my defense I will offer that I suffer from PTSS which occurred as the result of spending two Christmas’s in a row in what was officially classified as a combat zone. Granted I did get to see a Bob Hope Show with Joey Heatherton (who was highly regarded in 1965) and received many boxes of Christmas cookies from relatives and even school kids I didn’t know. I actually had a great Christmas that year even though I was living in a tent. But claiming to feel bad about Christmas because I spent two December 25s in SEA is a good story and I’m sticking to it.