The Christmas Letter I'd Love to Receive

Dear Friends and Family,

Once again, here's our annual holiday update! Unfortunately, I must report that 2011 has been the worst year ever. I mean ever! And not because of the enormous bonuses the Wall Street bankers got or the huge profits the corporations made but didn't have to pay taxes on. Nope. Our family is just so ordinary and average it makes me want to cry. All the Cs and Ds the kids got on their report cards, (when they attended school), the premarital sex (and the blessed illegitimate children), and the fact that you couldn't pay my family to read for pleasure. Me, I devour those romance novels and love every minute of my special reading time. But this holiday update isn't just about me.

In February, our youngest, fifteen year old Tabitha, had her second child. I should say that little Tiffany is the most beautiful baby ever, but she isn't though she is most definitely a gift from God. And she is a perfect baby. She doesn't cry, she doesn't burp, and I don't think she ever has gas. In fact, she doesn't move a muscle. At first we were worried about crib death, but after a few months we got over that. She's simply a peaceful baby who isn't very active. Unlike Tabitha's first child, Charlie-- he's nearly two-- and he's into everything. His crossed eyes don't prevent him from doing a thing. We wish we could afford to pay for the operation to un-cross his eyes, but we can't. Since he is a handful, Tabitha had to drop out of school, and I'm so concerned about her future considering she has no high school diploma and two children. But God must have great plans for her.

In April, Angie, our sixteen year old, had her third child. Baby Jessica has a beautiful face, but she was born with six fingers on her right hand and seven fingers on her left. I believe she'll grow up to be a pianist. You can never have too many fingers for that, and she can have a glorious career playing the organ at church. Even so, Tim and I would like to pay for the operation to remove some of those extra fingers, but Tim's post office job is so iffy nowadays that we can't go spending money like it's water.

In June, Joey, he's now seventeen, was thrown in jail yet again. This time they found the tiniest bag of marijuana in the pocket of his computer bag. There was a gun in there too, but the Constitution says it's o.k. We're having a tough time paying for Joey's lawyer and are still accepting donations to help us out with this incident. It's easy to donate with Pay Pal!

Tim and I have been married 16 years, and that's a long time, but we've decided to call it quits. But since all of our money that's earmarked for "legal" is going to Joey, we just bought some of that yellow tape the police use for crime scenes and just split the house in half. Tim stays in his half of each room, and I stay in my half of each room. But I must say that we go on occasional dates, and Tim takes me to Denny's for a Grand Slam. It's like going on vacation.

Christmas is almost here, and I can't believe another year has gone down the toilet. Tim keeps telling me to get a job, but I tell him I work all day around the house. Even the Lutherans say so.  I read in the Lutheran newsletter that a stay-at-home parent is worth $50,679.20. Wow! That's a lot of money. But my friend Thelma told me that that's nothing. That the Lutherans have grossly underestimated what it costs to perform the services I do. You know, the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, chauffeuring, child care, and administrative support. I asked her what they meant by administrative support, and Thelma told me that means sex.

Anyway, to top off the year, the cat disappeared on Halloween, and on Thanksgiving Day the dog was hit by a truck. We could only afford cremation.

So another year is history, and we want to wish everyone a Blessed Christmas and a Healthy New Year!

Love,  Tracy and Tim

Obama & Plan B

By allowing the Health and Human Services secretary to overrule the FDA and refuse to permit Plan B to be sold over the counter, the Obama administration is perpetuating the second class citizenship of girls and women in the United States.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I've finally read The Help after a zillion people have already read it.  I won't go on and on because so much has already been said about it, and I don't feel like adding too much to the clutter. But I'll say this: I enjoyed it.  And I'll say this: I saw the movie before I read the book, and I didn't like the movie.  I wanted to read the book because I hoped that the book would fill in some of the gaps that were in the movie adaptation of the story. (The people involved in making the movie were most likely too close to the project to see these gaps. Of course, there could be other reasons for those gaps.) Anyway, I'm happy to report that those gaps were not in the book.