History of Christmas Letters

In this nonproductive week other than being a productive reader, an interesting article in the Smithsonian magazine got my attention...no not scientific info or history or the future of technology. No, the article was on the development of the newsy, family Christmas letter, how it began and has evolved over time. There in the hey day of the Christmas missive you found out all kinds of happy, sappy stuff. Living the good life, still in love, children the most successful ever kind of story. Then came the Christmas card personalization family picture complete with matching outfits, at least color wise, on the beach or in a meadow or on a train track or against a barn or on the ski slopes or standing in front of a tree...well, you probably are getting the picture, and I write this in a comfy gray chair, with subdued lighting and Christmas decor in the background.... You know neither the chatty Christmas update nor the picture perfect card is a realistic visualization of daily life. Now, it is not my intention to hurt anyone's feeling who has done this or are sending out these kinds of cards and letters...just my observation for this post. My cousin Becky does a great Christmas letter and I look forward to it every year and I love that if she doesn't get it done for Christmas, she sends it as a New
Years letter.

For years, my father wrote the Christmas letter for he and my mom. It was newsy but he wrote it in a particular voice that read more like a report of "What We Did This Year." The last ten to fifteen years of the letter always included their annual twice yearly trip to Branson, to see the same shows and stay in the same crappy motel...where one feared robbery by night so they slept with their wallets under their pillows. I thought the tooth fairy should do a reversal and leave teeth and take the money while they stayed in that motel. Those few years they lived in Georgetown TX were probably some of the most unhappy times for my parents. My father, being funny, not, said the wrong stuff about the right people and those people ostracized them right out of the church and thus their social life because the friends they had from Houston who had moved there, had moved back to Houston due to medical concerns. So there they were...watching TV church most Sundays. My father befriended a neighbor whose husband was confined to a wheelchair and the four of them did things together. In hindsight, that was a pattern for my dad. He would befriend people he felt "superior" to, so that he became the dispenser of approval or friendship in the later years of his life. So, these Christmas letters became quite interesting...because he wrote about Branson and he devoted paragraphs to my brother's family. Then, at the end of the letter, more by indifference than compunction, he would mention us. Usually the brief one or two sentence reference could be summed up ergo, "Roy and Nancy are still breathing and taking up air others could enjoy." We waited for that Christmas letter, just for those last few sentences of rancor and so did my brother cause we would laugh at the letter in general and the uncharitable reference to us. I kept those Christmas letters he wrote but once my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he stopped writing the letters. He was embarrassed that she had it and didn't want anyone to know.

If I was going to write a Christmas letter and send cards the following might kind of be what would be written.


Merry Christmas Family and Friends,
There are rumors of a slight chance of snow this Christmas. The rain is melting the snow that began in earnest last Saturday night and ended on Monday. Snow paints and covers the landscape with quietness and wonder. The crunch of the snow breaks the silence but now a little older and with replacement parts, I don't do too much snow crunching because I don't want my yells for help to break the silence complete with sirens.

2018 has been a good year for the Monarchs. We've experienced God's goodness. We have had more happy than sad times. Roy continues along with his regular duties,  college recruiting for his company and he has found that he is good at that and enjoys the whole process of it. He has also become involved with Toastmasters at his company. Like most things he takes up, he is focused and highly motivated to achieve. While that is great, I think his greatest accomplishment has been learning to make biscuits...no, not just any biscuits, but Brenda's biscuits. He is very proficient and his experimental flavors have been hits. Even his blueberry biscuits that turned the biscuits totally blue. He has a new camera and I think he is so ready for time off so he can explore about the countryside taking pictures. He put his 2019 calendar together last weekend and one of my pics made the cut.

I feel the best I have felt in a very long time. Still working with a functional fitness trainer and at the end of March I had an ablation for afib and for heart flutter. Second one with the first being in 2013. So, I have a lot more energy which is wonderful. Several friends visited this year in NC and it was a blast having them here. Starting in the summer we discovered the other end of the Blue Ridge Parkway that is relatively close to us and we have fallen in love again with the Parkway. Last November I started looking after a little feral cat family and they evolved into the Feral Fam. I fell in love with the calico cat of the family. She came the closest to me and she talked (meowed) to me.... While she is such a huge part of happy news, she is also a part of our sad experiences. She was lost the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and while running an errand, I saw her on the side of the road. She was dead. We gave her a proper funeral and she is buried under her favorite tree which also happened to be one of her best loved spots. At church I am part of the teaching team for our Sunday School class and still singing and participating in choir. The director and his wife have put musical faith in me and lets me be a part of worship, not just be the part of being funny. I will forever be grateful for this encouragement. We increased our landscaping with new flowerbeds and with a whole clean out of the backyard. Next spring and summer will be fun times to plant flowers and then enjoy the colors and fragrances. We hope to find a contractor next year to replace the back deck with a covered, screened in back porch. The building boom being what it is around here, it is difficult to find anybody available.

So yep, that's about what the body of the letter would be. I am still so thankful to have a home here in the mountains and thankful that this home and our home in Texas are paid for. We welcomed a convertible to our stable of vehicles this past summer and what a welcomed addition Mustang Sam has been. So fun to drive on the Parkway or back roads with the top down and the breeze messing up your hair. I am so thankful for friends both here and in Texas. God has certainly blessed us with kind, funny, and generous friends.  God has wonderfully blessed me with a thoughtful husband who makes this all possible and his desire to free me from the heat of Houston that kept me as a prisoner, cause it was a high price to pay health wise.

As always, thank you for reading Monablog. Thank you for the encouragement and comments. This year other things have distracted me from writing less than usual on the blog but I was writing, even though absent on the blog. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Season Greetings!