Excerpts from Poison Pen Christmas Letters

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Some years my family does a Christmas letter, sometimes they don’t. When they do, however, we tend to make sure that it’s got a positive tone and that everyone in the family is down with what is being said.

This year my family got a Christmas letter from some people they know where we are pretty sure the woman is coming unhinged. Some excerpts:

“Mom and dad’s ashes remained stored in the backroom closet. (Husband) is having a difficult time trying to decide which cemetery to use for their final resting place. Maybe 2012?”

“In March, (daughter’s husband) announced that he really did not want to be married any more and has up and filed for divorce”

“(Daughter) continues to work at (Hospital). It too has been a frustrating year for her. Her good friends K and D divorced and K married the husband of another one of her nurse friends at (hospital). General Hospital has nothing on them!”

It certainly is a different approach to holiday greetings, no? Have you gotten any doozies this year?

2

Every year I think to myself that I will write an fake and outrageous one - maybe even have the people here help me craft it.

Every year I forget until it is too late…

Maybe next year.

3

I have written such letters, typically in response to ones I’ve received in particularly bad years. I have never, nor would I ever in a million years, actually sent it. How bad would it have to get for that to seem okay? Yikes.

My mother-in-law writes one every year. Most years she writes about every single son (there are four) and their wives, even if it’s just “Todd and Terri vacationed in Palm Springs in May.” One year Terri and Todd were glaringly omitted, for what transgression I don’t know. That’s as bad as I’ve ever received, and even that wouldn’t seem all that bad to a casual reader.