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Category: Serendipity | Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:14 pm

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You may think that February 9th is a little late to be talking about receiving Christmas letters, but one came in the mail today from the neighbor across the street.
We were congratulating ourselves for not receiving the annual Christmas letter touting the accomplishments of their extended family, but we were a bit premature. The neighbors admitted they were a bit (?) late in sending out their letter. I was sincerely hoping they had given up on the three page, underlined, paean to their family.
How do you say "I just don't care"� in a nice way? I just don't care whose granddaughter is playing softball; I just don't care who lives where; I just don't care what church everyone goes to. I just really, really don't care!
We also get another Christmas letter from another couple. It seems they caught a big fish - whoopee. Some of the grandchildren can walk on hind legs now - whoopee. The children are doing well (would you tell us if they were homeless?). Whoopee.
I am sincerely thinking of sending out our own Christmas letter next year. We can tell everyone every little thing that has gone wrong all year long; mention how badly our family members are doing; and explain why our finances are now such that we are accepting donations.

Hello dear friend or slight acquaintance,
We are barely hanging onto the farm after the tornado hit and removed our barn with the chickens in it. We have found feathers, but no chickens. We tried to salvage the vegetable garden, but the cows next door took advantage of the downed fences (see reference to tornado) and ate everything up. They didn't even have the decency to die on our property so we'd have the beef.
Most of the house is still here, and we are making do with an outside toilet and the charcoal grill (one for cooking and the other, well, you know). It's been about three months, but the utility company is promising we'll have electricity soon, probably sometime in the new year.
Our church members are praying for us, but so far haven't taken up a special donation to help us out. Prayers are nice, but $20's are appreciated also.
We notified our family members that we had survived so far, but if they could help we'd appreciate it. We found out that we must have been adopted - no one is claiming to be related to us.
On the bright side, we now don't have to worry about decorating for Christmas - there is very little left to string lights on, and anyway we don't have electricity.
Hoping you have happy holidays, and if so, could we please come to your house for Christmas dinner. We're tired of grilled hot dogs and it's darned cold in what is left of our house!

Your cold, hungry, and slightly testy neighbors



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Frank wrote on Tue Feb 10, 2015 9:43 am:

I'm in total agreement MG. I really dislike these letters. Maybe dislike is a strong word, a more accurate word is apathy.

It's like Facebook is seeping into the offline world.

I'd rather receive a Christmas letter like yours!

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Henry Johnson wrote on Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:25 pm:

! ! ROTF,LOL ! !
Love it, Jane..

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toni wrote on Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:35 pm:

That may be a sure fire way to get off their mailing lists.

Years ago the mom of one of my oldest daughters best friend started sending those letters out. My Mom had worked with her in the bakery department of Tom Thumb years before so Mom and I started receiving them. Right after they bought a new large home, their son was making big bucks at some company and the daughter had been hired by the city as a Medical Examiner. The next year Mom wrote "No one here by that name and Return to Sender" on the envelope and dropped back in the mail. Never got another one.

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2ofus wrote on Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:27 pm:

We get one each year and it is boring, mass produced, and not even signed. We don't even know the people's children or grandchildren but we still get the mass produced picture of the whole family. Yeah I'd rather get one of yours to!

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