Holiday Newsletter for the Modern World

Dear friends, relatives and co-workers who are not on the HR “watch list,”

Merry/Happy Whatever-You-Do-And/Or-Don’t Celebrate! Welcome to our family’s annual holiday newsletter!

We know it’s 2017. We aren’t Luddites. We are on all the major social media platforms (including Anxietizer, D-Nouncer and, of course, TimeSukk). We dutifully document by word, photo and hashtag every meal and movement (even THOSE movements — bless our poor parakeet’s IBS) because, as our youngest child says, “Thank you, Kardashians!”

But the physical act of writing a letter, putting it an envelope and paying a deep-in-debt quasi-government agency to deliver it oh-so-slowly is so comforting, so cathartic, so old-school uncool America. That’s why I’m writing this by hand with a piece of only the finest Appalachian strip-mined coal available from Williams-Sonoma. If it was good enough for Lincoln’s homework, it’s good enough for you! So pardon the smudges, and here we go:

Killing Them with Random Acts of Holiday Kindness

The holiday season is a time of traditions: some beautiful, some hokey, most with the best of intentions unless they involve “The Chipmunk Song.”

In our home, the one tradition we deal with even more often than that screeching novelty tune is the call to “be nicer to one another.” It is usually made by my wife and often punctuated with me yelling “dammit.” (Her request tends to come when I’m in midst of testing burned out strings of Christmas tree lights.)

This year, as reliable as a Starbucks’ holiday cup controversy, My Love made her annual plea for more civility almost no sooner than we had disposed of the Thanksgiving turkey carcass. However, her request contained a twist.