The holiday letter

'Tis the season for the holiday letter. This year, due to our move and new contact information, I will be forced to do something I only do when we move: include a holiday letter with our Christmas cards. I hate the holiday letter. I know they are supposed to be an excellent way to keep people that you don't care enough about to actually call/email/communicate with informed of the perfection that is your life, but to me they just end up sounding fake, pompous, and usually contain way too many exclamation points.

This year has been a thrilling ride for the Jones family! Bobby Junior made his usual perfect grades and will be the valedictorian for his kindergarten class! Little Mikey is the president of his preschool class and emerging as a real contender for a violin scholarship to orchestra camp! Bob received yet another promotion for which we all feel very grateful as we know there are many others struggling in the world. We have had to cut back on our vacations and were only able to go on 2 cruises this year. And me, well I am just grateful for the health, wealth, and love of my family as they support my volunteer efforts at saving the environment, teaching the less fortunate how to highlight their hair, and doing my best for the economy by getting my nails done at a different salon each week!

It's enough to make one gag while lighting the paper on fire and using it to light the annual yule log, yes?

I think my holiday letter will be a model of real life:

This year we nearly went under financially. While fearing for Steve's job, we decided to move to Massachusetts thus having to sell our home in the worst real estate market in 30 years. We ended up carrying massive credit card debt which we hoped to reconcile by profiting on the sale of the house. We'll just about break even, but don't expect much in the way of gifts. Our daughter was resentful of the move and has massive tween hormone swings which leave us both exhausted and terrified of her teen years. I am eating my worries and gaining weight at an alarming rate, so any of you that were thinking of buying me clothes better buy up a size or two. We are currently renting a home with a heating system that is both baffling and loud. We believe the house may have been wired by Ben Franklin himself as part of an experiment for electricity. We haven't actually made any friends in Massachusetts so we have a lot of free time that we spend watching a lot of TV and eating (see earlier passage on gift sizes). We hope to be financially solvent in the new year and perhaps get off the couch a little more.

I would like to receive a letter like this. This is real life. This is real information. I mean it tells about our year, gives our goals for the future and even includes gift giving tips.

What more could you want in a holiday letter?