Annual holiday newsletters offer glad tidings, although whether they’re of comfort and joy or unintended merriment depends upon the recipient.
One family’s fond, vividly detailed vacation memories and awkwardly personal medical problems may strike other families as Too Much Information at best.
Following: Excerpts from Christmas newsletters, including at least one parody, from Colorado contributors, including Elinor R. Davis, Anita Rehner, Sharon Stein and Philip Rogers.
• “By the time we docked at Cadiz, both Fred and I had come down with the flu.”
• “Dennis and I had ‘way too much fun decorating’ in that we put up 9 trees, and any and every decoration and bit of splendor I could find.”
• “A few of us started getting sick on the way back down. . . . As a result, I got to know my climbing team much better than I would have chosen to. (I will spare you the gory details. Let’s just say if I see another blue [waste carry-out] bag, it will be too soon.”
• “To briefly recap the year, it’s been very interesting with some wonderful travel. We started in January with a trip to the Bahamas and Nassau. In February I was in Nashville. In March, we headed to Nebraska. In April, [we] flew to Switzerland, where [my spouse] worked and I had a ball visiting old friends, shopping and getting my fill of wonderful raclettes and chocolates. From Switzerland, we flew to Greece . . .”
• “In March, [my owners] went to Mexico for a week, and I got to spend a whole week alone with Brooke. I hope that happens again. She lets me get on the furniture.”
• “Not that we’ve been idle though, oh no! If a wall or a piece of furniture could be changed, improved or decorated with a paintbrush, we found a way to do it.”
• “Speaking of things political, I was very disappointed when the First Family selected that Portuguese Waterdog, ‘Bo,’ as their companion. No doubt it was an affirmative action selection designed to promote a diverse multicultural agenda. . . . At least I did get a nice letter back from the First Lady in response to my letter promoting the virtues of Bichons.”
• “While at dinner the second night out, we met Fred and Judith (she speaks seven languages, among them Portuguese and Spanish, and he, a survivor of the German concentration camps, speaks three).”
• “I’m still trying to lose weight, and have been eating more fish. But my koi pond has frozen over, so now it’s back to tuna again.”
