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The
Gloating Christmas Letter
By Catherine Martines
Now that Christmas
is behind us, can we be honest about one of the troubling aspects
of this otherwise uplifting holiday: the dreaded rambling, gloating
Christmas Letter.
Christmas is
supposed to be a time of good cheer; a time to reconnect with old
friends and get updated on everyone's busy lives. But why is it
that someone always has to send that one Christmas letter that leaves
its readers feeling depressed and inadequate, or just plain deflated.
If Latter-day
Saints didn't invent those long-winded, obnoxious letters, we certainly
have added to them. I don't know what it is about us that makes
otherwise, kind, humble people feel the need to impress everyone
with how great their children and family vacations are each year.
Maybe they don’t know how it affects the rest of us who are
grateful for an outing to the grocery store and that our children
have gone three weeks without being sent to detention. If you read
between the lines of those well-meaning, but bombastic letters,
you will often find a much different, a truer picture, of what some
of their lives are really like.
To illustrate
my point, let me just decode one such letter.
Dear Friends
and Family,
This year the
Lord has truly blessed our family.
Tom continues
to climb the corporate ladder, and in fact, this year he climbed
two more rungs. Company XYZ seems very impressed with his work and
his bosses say he has a bright future.
Read: Due to
corporate downsizing, Tom has taken on extra work from laid-off
workers. It looks like he'll keep job for at least a few more months.
Suzie is busy
at home with the children, and serving as both PTA and Relief Society
president. She fulfilled a life-long dream and ran the Boston Marathon
this year. In between loaves of homemade wheat bread, she found
time to finish her master's degree. Suzie also organized a family
reunion for her side of the family: all eight brothers and sisters
got together and performed "The Sound of Music" for her
parents.
Read: Suzie
is semi-comatose at the moment. She is taking Prozac and doesn't
want to see any of her siblings ever again.
Tommy, Jr. just
turned 12. He made straight A's again this year and earned a spot
on the school's highest honor roll. He is excelling at guitar and
attended a special guitar camp in Cordoba, Spain this summer. He
is just a few badges short of his Eagle Scout award. In his spare
time, Tommy spends a lot of time on the computer; he's a regular
computer genius.
Read: Tommy,
Jr. is a little stressed out. He's kind of a geek. He spends Way
Too Much time on the computer and doesn't have many friends.
Little Suzie
Q is now 10 years old and doing great in ballet. She was chosen
to play Clara, the lead role in the Nutcracker Ballet. We are all
so proud of her performance. Next summer she is hoping to attend
a summer camp with the New York City Ballet.
Read: Suzie
is on her way to becoming an anorexic, overachiever with serious
self-image problems. She'd rather spend her summer hanging out with
friends at the local swimming pool, but because doesn't want to
disappoint her parents, who constantly remind her how much they've
invested in her ballet lessons for the past seven years, she'll
go to ballet camp.
Tom and Suzie
took a trip to the Holy Land this year where we picked up several
olive wood carvings for our collection. Then we took the family
to Disney Land. Suzie is already on the Internet planning next year's
vacation to Hawaii!
Read: We're
broke. We put it all on credit cards.
We hope the
Lord has blessed your lives as he has ours this year.
Read: Our life
is so great, there's no way yours can possibly be as good as ours.
You get the
idea. I think we should all make a New Year's Resolution not to
send out any such letter this year. It would certainly add to next
year's holiday cheer.
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© 2002 Meridian
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