One of our Christmas traditions is sending out a newsletter with our Christmas cards to update family and friends about our year.  And I love getting letters along with cards so I can see what others are up to.  This was especially true before I caved in and got a Facebook account, but even so, there are some people who we only hear from once a year.  This makes the updates even more special.  There are, however, two friends whose letters are always predictable.

The newsletter from the first family, whom I will call Al B. and Ima Braggin, always go something like this:

Greetings from the Braggin family.  This year, our daughter, Jeannie S. completed her PhD in rocket science.  There were two hundred agencies competing with each other to hire her, and it was quite stressful having to decide which job to take.  She finally chose to go with NASA, and although the pay wasn’t quite as high as some of the private corporations, she felt it would be a good first step. And really, she can make do with seven figures. Unfortunately, with the move, she will have to give up her title as Miss New York, and won’t be able to compete in the Miss America contest. Our son, Will B. was just made chief of staff in neurosurgery at Shands.  At twenty-five, he is the youngest chief of staff in the history of the entire U.S.  We were all a little disappointed that his wife, Wanda B., fell two points short of being admitted into Mensa, but are confident she will make it next year.  Al B. continues to stay busy as the CEO and CFO of his company, Megamillions, which opened two new branches in Paris and Rome.  So needless to say, we will be spending a lot of time back and forth between Europe and our New York office.  Thank goodness we bought a new corporate jet last year!  As for me, I’m on the board of every worthwhile foundation in New York, but with all the traveling we’ll be doing, I may need to give up a couple.  Still, I manage to keep busy as I launched my new health food company, Eat as if Your Life Depends on it, last spring.  It has already been featured on the cover of Healthy Living magazine, which catapulted us into national recognition and multiplied our sales to the point of having to hire three hundred additional employees. That’s about all that’s been happening with us. Merry Christmas!

The second family, Jess and Shirley Woeful’s newsletter is like this:

Well it’s been another year full of gloom and doom.  Mama Woeful fell down the steps last winter and broke every bone in her body.  We had no choice but to put her in Dumper-Til- She-Dies nursing home, as the bank foreclosed on our house last spring, leaving us with nowhere to go.  We fell behind on our mortgage payments because Jess was hospitalized twenty-nine times in the past year. And as you all know, I can’t work because of my anxiety and my PTSD from when I dropped the fifty pound bag of dog food on my foot while working at the Piggly Wiggly.  We finally ended up moving in with Jess’ cousin, Kent Work, as he was crippled from back surgery and needed someone to take care of him.  We would have liked to bring Mama with us, but there was just no way Mama’s wheelchair would fit into Kent’s single-wide trailer.  Our daughter, Vera, also moved in with us after her husband left her for the marriage counselor they were seeing.  Then our pickup truck was stolen right from in front of the trailer, so Vera had no transportation to get to her job at the Puppy Mill Pet Store as a pet psychic. All this caused her to stress eat and she gained a hundred pounds.  And the government checks just barely covered the grocery bill and the big-screen plasma TV cable bill as it was.  My doctor says I need surgery on my gallbladder after the holidays.  I may have to give up the botox treatments for my migraines to pay for that, as we can’t afford health insurance. I don’t know how we’ll make it through the next week, let alone the next year. The Woeful family wishes you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

There is simply no way the Fannons can compete with these two, so I’m afraid our newsletter will be somewhat of a disappointment to both of these friends.