A Christmas Story

No, this is not another of those stories as first told by Dickens, rather, it is another chronicle about my various writings over the years with a particular regard about the dreaded Christmas letters. You know, like those you receive where proud parents are proclaiming each or maybe all of their children will certainly become Secretary of State or possibly even President. I am now old enough, without any fear that my meanderings will be read by any of them, to state, I disliked them and finally reached a point where, knowing what they would include, didn't read them. Gasp! That subject has been written by Ann Landers and others to a pont of distaste but this is finally MY attitude toward them. First of all I was  always urged, coerced, threatened and sometimes even received bodily harm from my darling wife to write the Christmas letter, which was always about our kids. Now that's an admission that in part I was guilty of the same things our friends wrote about. However, I never wrote about how very  wonderful they were because  others used to write tales ad nauseaum (sp?) on that subject and I tried to make mine more of a discription of some of their antics that might bring a smile to the faces of those reading them. I hoped to entertain my friends rather than bore them. Admittedly, I did receive some nice comments from some of my readers--two to be more precise, my Mother and my wife. both to assauge my ego and to hope that the following year might not take as much pleading. I wrote how my oldest daughter, age four
had cut off the hair of my youngest daughter, age 3, so that she looked like a badly shorn sheep or I might state that all of my sons were  athletes, sometimes prone to misplay a ball, but never did I write anything that might have been how fantastic they were (although they were pretty nifty). But after some 34 years of writing our annual Christmas letter, I finally gave up for lack of humor surrounding the past year. Even Louise concluded they weren't what they used to be and I was relieved of that duty. However, they were all included in a book and now once in a while I will get it out and smile as I read one or two. They are not a journal writing. I was never in to that. But they do give an historical remembrance to some of the those days of long ago and of what once was. Having said all this, I am left with the thought it might be a good time to say a very Merry Christmas to those of you who may read this and whom I love. May the next year find you healthy, wealthy and wise enough not to bore your friends with another Christmas story,