I hate Christmas letters.
Well, I hate the kind that sugar-coat real life. Yes, there are awards, graduations and births to share, but every person's life has shitty times, too.
People fib in Christmas letters about how wonderful their past year has been. It isn't possible to have had a perfect year, a perfect life, or the perfect family.
You know what I mean? Yes, you do.
In a letter, I want to hear the good things but I also want to hear about the struggles, disasters, challenges and failures--the real stories.
So, here is a tongue-in-cheek ditty about one family's year. (Any resemblance to real persons or situations is purely coincidence.)
Please sing it to yourself, to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
By the twelfth day of Christmas, the family had endured...
twelve new referrals,
eleven gooey ointments,
ten toes a-throbbing,
nine rashes itching,
eight discs in spasm,
seven bouts of hiccups,
six ribs a-cracking,
five golden scabs,
four kidney stones,
three stiff necks,
two gouty knees
and a surprise colostomy.
Merry Christmas! And keep those letters coming.
