BY BELINDA M. PASCHAL
Happy holidays, readers!
Just wanted to share with you my yearly holiday letter – you know, the one in which I ooze joy and season’s greetings, and point out that I have a bigger house/car/income than you, that I’m spending Christmas in Aruba, and that my super-prodigy wonderspawn make your honor-roll kids look like “Dumb and Dumber.”
Oh, wait … I live in a one-bedroom apartment, drive a 14-year-old car and have no children, so that’s definitely not MY holiday letter! But we all know someone who mass-mails those annual missives (I call ‘em “brag bulletins”) that give a play-by-maddening-play recap of the last 11 months in their incredibly awesomer-than-yours life. They spout geysers of love, glad tidings, and wishes for a prosperous new year, but often they serve to boast about impressive job promotions, luxurious new homes and genius offspring – and to remind us of all the things we didn’t achieve in 2010.
Folded inside deceptively festive Christmas cards, they lay in wait to ambush us like single-spaced, double-sided, three-page ninjas. They’re typed in microscopic font on red or green stationery, and chock-full of corny prose, cutesy kid stories and in some cases, outlandish claims that don’t just stretch the truth but make fib-flavored taffy out of it:
“We are so proud of Madison, who had a very productive year. During a break between volunteering with the Peace Corps in Malawi and building houses with Habitat for Humanity, she finished her second novel, received straight A’s – well, one was an A-minus because she missed two days to host a fundraiser for the Foundation for Kittens Without Mittens. Nevertheless, she found time to attend her fourth-grade graduation.
“Chase turned 5 in June. For his birthday, he received his first set of LEGO building blocks, which he used to build a scale model cathedral with a fully-functioning baptismal font! He showed off his architectural talents on a CNN special about gifted children and was subsequently commissioned to assist in the renovation of Notre Dame, as well as given honorary citizenship of Vatican City by The Pope.
“Last, but not least, we learned this morning that we won the lottery for $382 million!”
Fortunately, the one holiday letter I’ve received thus far is from friends whose updates make me feel pretty good about my own life:
“Clem moved out in May to live with a bunch of roommates in Leavenworth. We manage to visit him once a month, usually on Saturday or Sunday. He says the food is decent, but he’s sick of body cavity searches and making license plates.
“The baby is 18 months and talking up a storm. His vocabulary consists mostly of “No!” and “Mine!” and assorted grunts and barking.”
As I wait dreading more seasonal scribblings from friends and family, I invite you, dear readers, to fill my email box with holiday cheer by forwarding your own holiday letters. I never pass up a chance to read good fiction.
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