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Friday, December 19, 2014

By the Twelfth Day of Christmas



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.

4 comments:

Gwen Buchanan said...

Great rendition Carol.. I imagine many can commiserate.

Jane Tims said...

Hi Carol. I know what you mean about Christmas letters. I occasionally write one and try to be balanced about good and bad things that have happened. Most people have so many problems of their own, it is hard to burden them with mine. Jane

Jane Brideson said...

Love this! I hate those xmas letters too.

Carol Steel said...

Thanks Gwen, Jane T. and Jane B for commenting. I don't really hate Christmas letters; I dislike the imbalance in them. Also, I don't think of sharing one's bad news as well as the good, as bringing people down at Christmastime. It's just life, those bads and goods. And a letter with only overly enthusiastic reports of wonderfulness can be just as much of a downer as a more realistic report of the year's events. A Christmas letter is meant to share our news with one another, all of the news. Again, thanks for commenting.