Each year, I receive a raft of holiday letters that update me on the sender’s family doings over the past 12 months. I have a special message for the people who send these letters to me:
Maybe you’re lucky enough to receive holiday letters from people who possess rapier wit, a keen sense of irony and legendary storytelling skills. Perhaps your correspondents are the second coming of Oscar Wilde or the reincarnation of Dorothy Parker, and they can pull off an annual holiday letter without coming across as a self-aggrandizing ninny or a thumping bore.
But let’s face it, comrades: That’s a rare skill. The holiday letters I receive invariably fall into two categories: humble-braggadocious or boring as fuck. And an astonishingly high percentage manage to straddle both classifications.
I can’t figure out the purpose of the stupid fucking holiday letters I receive, especially in the Facebook age. If the senders are close friends or family, I’m already aware of the covered exploits. If not, I don’t give a fuck!
It’s as if they think the family Christmas photo looks too lonely in the envelope, so they have to enclose a sheet of paper showcasing their boring-ass travelogue of Colonial Williamsburg or stultifying account of their child’s tap-dancing recital. I’m certain they themselves were bored as fuck during the events described, so why the compulsion to subject others to that shit?
I wish they’d just write “Happy Fucking Holidays” on the reverse side of the photo, sign their name and call it a fucking day. Please. For the trees. For the love of sweet, merciful Baby Jeebus. Stop.
PS: I sincerely hope the weather woman featured in that GIF wasn’t seriously injured, but damn, I could watch that all day. I suspect most of us who have been glued for hours to inane coverage of our impending weather-related doom feel the same.
David Koch
The gif is from a tee vee show. It’s Lucy Punch, who was the very funny blonde in “Dinner for Schmucks”.
JMG
Dear Ms. Cracker: A former co-worker of mine who moved away for a much better job used to send Christmas letters I began looking forward to on Labor Day, a truly hilarious recounting of all minor disasters in his family’s life that year. Alas, now that his children are grown, he stopped doing it.
Elizabelle
I love the simple cards that have the kids’ photos on them. They’re so poignant, viewed several years later.
Who reads a Christmas missive the first time, never mind years hence? It’s a hostage taking initiative.
Zinsky
Betty – harsh and cynical, but true. My wife insists we do a letter every year, but it ends up being a “cut and paste” job that is simply recycled from the prior year. Most people’s lives simply aren’t that interesting, I’m afraid.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@David Koch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdtR-X5PGjQ
:-)
I only got one letter like that every year, from a work friend. I found them interesting, in a way. They stopped when I stopped replying to them. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
greennotGreen
Bah humbug much, Betty? Have some holiday punch and chill.
moonbat
Sorry, Betty. First World Problem. If you don’t want to keep up with people who send you Christmas cards/letters, don’t read them.
patrick II
Get over yourself. I know you can write and write beautifully and not all your friends can. So, stop being stuck up about it. Christmas is a time for sharing and these people are attempting to share something with you in the best way they know how . Enjoy it and enjoy the fact that you have friends who will try to share as imperfectly as their attempt might be. It is Christmas time after all ,
Betty Cracker
@David Koch: So it’s not a real hurricane coverage mishap? No matter. It’s very well done.
Schlemazel
Here is something, from America’s dong, that almost made be think there is some hope in the world. The town of Riviera Beach, FLA has renamed “Old Dixie Highway” To “Barrack Obama Highway”. Sometimes the arc is so slight it is impossible to see so it is nice to be reminded that it is still there.
Schlemazel
@patrick II:
I don’t think they care at all to get us caught up with their life. They write bad novels with themselves as the protagonist in an attempt to awe the reader. It is rare that they tell an interesting or even a revealing story.
Maybe you have better people sending to you because your special.
Amir Khalid
@David Koch:
Are there really German-Americans with the surname Ellenbogen? My dictionary tells me it means “elbow”.
Big Ol Hound
Most of these xmas letter writers have this idea that they are popular and interesting when they actually from some of the most boring people I know.
Scout211
Righteous rant, Betty.
All the Holiday letter senders in my life have moved to Facebook. And many of them write a daily diary of their lives that used to be condensed into one big Holiday letter. Now it is a running personal diary.
I don’t do Facebook, so on the one hand I am spared the self-indulgence but on the other hand, I miss the updates on people’s lives.
Plus/minus, I guess.
OzarkHillbilly
Betty, pre divorce I was one of those people who possessed “rapier wit, a keen sense of irony and legendary storytelling skills.” or at least many of the recipients told me (my ex did not appreciate it tho because some of the funniest episodes involved her)(I should have known right then it was never going to last). I lost my sense of humor with the separation tho and just lost interest in doing it. In fact, I soon lost what little interest I had possessed with all things Xmas.
scav
I stumbled across one Christ-honoring exempler of the breed that accompanied such prose effusions every year with a xeroxed request for funds in order support their families winter missionary trips, once to Mexico explicitly to convert the middle classes!
patrick II
@Schlemazel:
Or maybe I have the same type of people who write to me , and perhaps the highlight of the year is the fact that their third grade daughter got an honorable mention in the art contest , but I appreciate the effort . Not everybody leads exciting lives, not all of my friends write skill and humor, and yeah it’s a letter about them so they make themselves the center of the letter , but I like to hear how they are doing anyhow .
ThresherK (GPad)
In hurricane season I’ve always wondered when that one TV person down at the shore would be inundated by a wave, the camera would keep rolling, and all they’d find was a ripped microphone cable, like an overburdened fishing line.
I want to see it, but at the same time don’t want it to happen to anyone.
With the car thing I haven’t even started my cards. Good thing my list is short.
Chris
So much mad.
Chris
@ThresherK (GPad):
What if the reporter were from Fox News?
steverinoCT
I have a friend who used to email links to her photo page with updates on her daughter, whom I nicknamed “Wonder-Girl.” Being childless myself, I was amused at how they doted on her every move. I took it in the spirit of wonder it was intended, and miss it now that the friend has moved to a different app and stopped with the links.
I like the family holiday letters, too, because I can’t tolerate FB enough to keep current, and thought of doing one myself as an exercise in humorous essays, but with no kids or pets and working virtually by myself in an office, I have nothing to riff on. I can’t even make these two paragraphs interesting, so there you are.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
A little help? I’m stuck in moderation again.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
David Koch
@Amir Khalid: no that was her character’s name. the actual person is Lucy Punch who is very funny and a really pretty blonde comedian.
mtiffany
Because in 21st century America, no one suffers silently, and we’re sure as shit not going to suffer alone.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemazel: As an added benefit, the new highway name will annoy the troglodytes who successfully clamored to rename the Florida Turnpike the “Ronald Reagan Turnpike” (though no one actually calls it that).
Chris
Okay, somewhat more seriously;
… how does this happen?
My world is pretty much split into two groups; people I love and care about and whose letters (more likely emails) I don’t mind reading even if they have a few annoying traits, and people I don’t give a shit about who wouldn’t send me these letters in the first place. There’s very few people in the gray area.
Is this because I’m an introvert and therefore don’t tend to get close enough to people to be on Christmas-list-mailing terms with them unless I really do like them? Is it because I’m in the Facebook generation where everyone’s basically already updated on everything that’s going on in other people’s lives? This… just seems like a weird problem to have.
David Koch
Football Lovers
5 Bowl games today — see you’re local listing here
Then,
Dallas Cowboys vs NY Jets tonight at 8:00PM eastern..on NFL Channel.
Woo Hooo!
RSA
I like the letters I get, but I can see how the form is an acquired taste.
Of course, most of the letters I receive this time of year are from friends who are professional writers. One had a book published this past year, from a small press (but with a good reputation!) and another was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I myself have relatively little to tell such friends in return, aside from reminding them to keep an ear out for my upcoming interview with NPR.
I could go on, but I must dash. The post office closes at noon, and I want to make sure that our Secret Santa gifts to impoverished children in rural areas of the state–poor dears–arrive before X-mas.
Until next year,
RSA
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Are you fucking kidding me? That’s its official name?
(You’re right, I’ve never heard anyone call it that).
Amir Khalid
@David Koch:
Thank FSM. Although I know of a real-life American lawyer and notorious sports heckler named Robin Ficker. Ficker, as it happens, is German for “fucker”.
MattF
Possibly similar, in some respect, or perhaps possibly not, is this Gene Weingarten essay about concrete.
scav
Hmmm, may start calling them literary fruitcake. Seasonally exchanged, suits the taste of a few, generally heavy, far too often dry, full of nuts and dried fruit. Better if accompanied with still more alcohol.
Guachi
I’m sorry you are such a bitter, self-centered person that you hate reading about the lives of friends and relatives but have no problem telling us about you and your family.
Have you bothered to tell these people you don’t care about to not send you letters?
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Robin Ficker is actually a local (Montgomery County, Maryland) personality. Besides a notorious sports heckler, he’s also a conservative ‘gadfly’, constantly offering referendum questions to allow citizens to limit taxes and political terms of office. However, MoCo is a very blue county, so his various campaigns over the years have all failed.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Dunno about that one but there are plenty of Jews with German surnames that mean, well, mean things because of politics during the Middle Ages.
Another Holocene Human
@Big Ol Hound: The first one I saw was in the 1990s from some Midwestern relations we barely knew. Not much going on in flyover country (note: they did NOT live in Chicago), nothing better to do than to write a long missive on the personal computer because their children are just so adorable and what’s the point of ponying up for a personal computer and printer if you can’t use it to one up Christmas versus your poorer, un-computered cousins?
Betty Cracker
@Chris: Yep — since 1998. You’d never know it, though. Even the wingnut Reagan worshipers I know don’t call it that.
@Guachi: Nope — I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
The should have renamed Alligator Ally after St. Ronnie. Miles of empty swamp that people just want to get through as quickly as possible
Another Holocene Human
@Guachi: Huh, I don’t recall ever seeing a BC post which drones on about her kids 2nd place rhetoric awards the way those letters tend to do. She usually talks about dogs to an eager audience of dog lovers.
But if her posts irritate you so much … why are you here?
A Humble Lurker
We just got a letter from one of my mom’s cousins (who we pretty much never hear from) giving us a brief run down of their trips to South America, Antarctica, Portland, Florida and bits of Europe. Everybody else just sent pictures of themselves, them and their spouses, them and their dogs, them and their spouses and their dogs, them and their kids, them and their spouses and their kids, them and their spouses and their kids and their dogs…you get the idea. So I can’t relate. I don’t facebook, so I wouldn’t mind letters, but there’s only so engaging a letter can be when it’s from family you don’t know all that intimately.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemazel: I was driving across Alligator Alley last month when a furniture delivery box truck that was ahead of me by some yards suddenly started swerving all over the road. It went up on two wheels at one point, then recovered. The guy must’ve fallen asleep or been texting or something. That road’s so straight you could tie off the steering wheel to the door handle, crawl in the back seat and take a nap between Ft. Lauderdale and Naples!
Barney
@Amir Khalid: Though there are people with the surname ‘Elbow’ too.
MomSense
I’m considering writing a new holiday teevee special called Finding a Menorah at Target. It’s based on the true story of my mom and I doing just that earlier this month. It even has a happy ending.
I used to send photos to close friends and family (now I just email them). My two favorites were my dog looking pissed off with antlers sliding off his head with the boys looking pissed off next to him. The other good one was the kitten looking shocked and terrified with the felled Christmas tree and all the decorations around him. He never tried to climb one of those weird trees again.
JVader
This is why I love Balloon Juice… no filter posts like this that tell the fucking truth. Oh, and fuck the holidays altogether. I only wish someone would go back to drunk blogging the GOTP debates (not Cole).
WereBear
When Mr WereBear and I got married, we decided: no Christmas cards. We get some from certain folks, which we then reciprocate, but there is no List we must supply with paper.
But I’ve been there, and yes, the hilarious holiday letter is a rare gift. Because the best humor is self-deprecating, and most people are desperately interested in puffing themselves up, because of the sad hollow inside.
EdinNJ
Well, the butthurt in this thread is glorious. Much more entertaining than the stupid, boring letters these people are obviously still sending.
WereBear
@MomSense: I enjoyed my hairstylist’s new rescue puppy with the “Eddie hat” from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. We said it together:
TaMara (BHF)
Dear friends and family, please continue to tell me about your life in your annual letters. I celebrate your joys, empathize with your challenges and I don’t care if you entertain me with your prose. What I wouldn’t give to have one more letter from those who are no longer here.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
It’s actually surprising, considering how much they love rubbing people’s faces in memories of their favorite saint, and considering that there’s a lot of wingnuts down here.
I mean, I knew plenty of people in the DC area who refused to call the airport anything but National or DCA (either because it was called that when they grew up, or as a deliberate “fuck you” to Reagan and his groupies, or both), but I’ve still heard people call it Reagan. People know that’s one of its names. The turnpike… not so much.
MomSense
@WereBear:
Ha!! I need to watch that movie again.
ThresherK
@Chris: Fox News doesn’t do reporting, do they? Actual people out in actual unplanned and unscheduled news? That’s expensive. Sure, you can count on them being at a GOP convention or debate, but those are easy to figure out.
MTV’s “TRL” wore out more shoeleather than Fox News.
MattF
@Chris: There’s also 6th Avenue in NYC– Call it anything else and the required response is “Hmm? Where’s that?”
patrick II
@TaMara (BHF):
Nice.
Botsplainer
My wife’s aunt in Connecticut always sent the best letters unintentionally. The best included:
-detailed physical descriptions of an ailment suffering aunt by marriage who was losing parts of her body little by little due to diabetes she refused to manage;
-a blow by blow description of that same aunt’s explosive diarrhea as they removed a diaper and how it sprayed people, furniture, walls and ceiling. She wrote it out on a festive card.
Second best was her descriptions of the fact her addict daughter was pregnant by another addict, how unhappy she was about the pregnancy and how much she doubted that the baby would be born anything but retarded.
I treasured those.
scav
There is a somehow a world of difference between the unexpected long letter from someone suddenly hoping to re-establish contact, where there is at least some thought of the intended recipient, and the bulk, rote, seasonal detail dump.
JPL
When the sons were younger, their mission in life was to drive me crazy. A friend called and she had four perfect girls. She was updating me on how busy they were and what wonderful achievements they had. One daughter was appearing in the Nutcracker in a major city. Just at the point when she asked how the boys were doing, I noticed one pass by the window. He repelled down the house which was three stories on the back side. She’s talking about the Nutcracker and my fking son is repelling down the house. I very calmly said they were fine.
Ruviana
@Amir Khalid: There are indeedI! I knew one just after high school and then when I took German in college figuring out his name made me lol.
Randy P
@ThresherK (GPad): Humorist Dave Barry wrote a novel in which a hurricane featured prominently. There were 4 casualties, all of them TV reporters in the same spot. The first one standing in water reporting on downed power lines (ZZZAAAPP!!) and the next 3 reporting on the previous reporters’ deaths, also standing in the same water (ZZZAAAPP!!)
Methinks living in Miami, Mr. Barry may be exposed to a lot of this reportorial genre.
@Becky Cracker: I’m part of the problem I guess. We don’t write them, but we do like to read them and get an annual update. And no we’re not getting this news from Facebook (which neither one of us checks on even a monthly basis, let alone daily).
However, that said, I’d love to track down the extremely snarky National Lampoon version of the holiday letter, which I fondly remember. My Lampoon reading days were in the 70s and there were some truly awesome stories, including a little item by John Waters called “Vacation: 1959” which became the first “Vacation” movie.
(Edit to correct: John Hughes)
Mai.naem.mobile
A couple.of years ago I talked to a friend who I hadn’t kept up with in years. We were supposed to get together the following January. I got .her annual letter at Christmas. She talked about her Alaska cruise, her new nephew, how blessed theu were (shes evangelical)etc., and, the good time they had had waiting in line at Chick-fila during the hullabaloo over Chick-fila. I suddenly found an excuse not to meet her in January.
JPL
@Mai.naem.mobile: Sometimes those letters are quite helpful.
WereBear
@JPL: They say boys drive you crazy at different times than girls do, that’s all. And in different ways :)
debbie
@TaMara (BHF):
I’m with you. It sure beats silence.
Ruviana
Might I be freed from moderation?
Another Holocene Human
@MomSense: Target delivered on Hannukah gelt. Big hit at work, the Christians were scarfing it up.
ThresherK
@Randy P: I will have to look that up. I enjoyed “Big Trouble”, his first novel, and it was released as a film in late September 2001, so its merits were basically lost to history.
Our holiday is never complete without listening to David Sedaris’ Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol, although the written work is another three pages longer than the audio clip.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: Damn, that is awesome.
gelfling545
I just finished reading 2 letters from longtime friends & was happy to receive them. I tend to set them aside & read them all in a lump. I don’t send or get cards or letters from people whose doings I don’t care about so that’s not a problem. It was nice to be reminded that one friend’s mom (whom I know as well) will be 100 years old this year or to hear the other friend, whose kids grew up with mine, is expecting another grandchild & that her husband’s health is better.
Starfish
I hate receiving the cards with a picture that have never been touched by human hands. I especially hated it when they are coming from people that I do not know addressed to other people that I do not know. How am I supposed to internet snoop these people to tell them where their card should have gone?
Another Holocene Human
@scav: Thank you!
Letters from close relatives — except my mother, fuck her — are treasured. Random 2nd/3rd cousins with overfed, dull kids who think the President is a Kenya usurper? I don’t care, honeybuns. Save your color inkjet ink.
To be fair, haven’t gotten one of those in ages. As some other people have mentioned, flaking out on cards tends to cause them to stop coming. I’ve had enough go-rounds of fail in the last few years that I just haven’t been consistent.
MomSense
@Another Holocene Human:
They make the best stocking stuffers.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human:
I kept the spraying diarrhea card around for years and occasionally took it out to enjoy again. Sadly, it got lost in a move. The addict card is still floating around somewhere.
Botsplainer
@ThresherK:
“We’re arrivin’, but we’re departin’, too…”
Betty Cracker
@ThresherK: Hilarious! “Jesus Shaves” (also via Sedaris) is an Easter classic, of course.
WereBear
I give back to Balloon Juice readers! (Legal disclaimer… possibly give back, depending on the atmospheric interference at random.org that day.)
Way of Cats Holiday Raffle
One randomly drawn winner will receive a TORUS water bowl, in just the right size for the kitties. Only this week! Good luck!
Raven
We take a pic of us and the dogs and make a card.
WereBear
@Botsplainer: both a cautionary warning about licking toads and a bizarre earworm for the ages.
Capri
There are plenty of folks whose lives I care less than a fuck about – and they know it because I don’t send them Christmas cards and they don’t send me any.
That’s quire a needle to thread there: I like you enough to go through the trouble of sending you a Christmas card and thus receiving one in return. BUT, I just want to see your name scrawled below a generic greeting, any more it waaaay TMI and I’ll be crabbing about you on line.
ruemara
I suppose this is a window into my pathetic existence, but I will take a Christmas missive any time. I hardly ever get emails or texts, much less a real letter or card from someone who actually wanted to say something to me. I usually don’t get to feel like I matter that much. Don’t turn your nose up at it. Even from a place of vanity, it still is a form of reaching out. It’s annoying, I can empathize, but sheer loneliness is much worse.
scav
@Capri: Sometimes the entirely proper response to a “how ya doing?” is “fine” not droning on for 3/4s of an hour. Social pings are sometimes undervalued.
Germy
@ruemara: well, if it makes you feel any better I enjoy reading your balloon-juice comments and look forward to them.
ruemara
@Germy: Why, thank you. I look forward to your comments as well. I’ve met wonderful people online, many from the snarling mass of vitriolic jackals who populate lefty blogs. Just rather hard to go out to movies with one.
We are real beings. We are meant to see other faces, know another voice, share their spaces from time to time. Otherwise, we go amiss.
A Humble Lurker
To be fair, isn’t it kind of easy to ignore Christmas letters if you want to?
PhoenixRising
@ruemara: Happy holidays! This year, I had to replace a keyboard cover because of how hard I laughed at one of your BJ comments. My teenager has reached the age of cynicism, so she found it funny as well. Thanks for showing up.
Baud
@ruemara: I’m with you. Glad you are here.
schrodinger's cat
@ruemara: @Germy: What Germy said. I love reading your comments, especially the ones about your artistic and baking projects.
schrodinger's cat
@ruemara: I know what you mean. I have moved around so much in the last 5 to 7 years that I know how hard it is to replace your core group of friends and loved ones.
WereBear
@ruemara: I value ruemara! And I remember when things improved, and I was as pleased as could be.
Virtual friends are friends, too.
If you ever want to Google Hangout over a mutually streamed movie, you know where I am.
PhoenixRising
We had a holiday letter brawl this year, which I lost to the Mrs due to being in partial aircast compression. (If we wrote a holiday letter, it would feature the dog walk on which it took both of us, the Dane, the 15lb poodle mix and a fire hydrant to sprain my knee 5 days before our annual holiday party…it was epic. Kid rose to the occasion, which is all you can ask of a 16yo 10th grader.)
Both of us wanted the first shot at this year’s missive from a family we’ve known for 15 years. For the first 10 years of holiday letters (this family, like ourselves, is not Christian so it’s not an entry in the Xmas Letter Hall of Fame, too bad) they were boring: our kids are highly accomplished, we have new professional associations refer your friends, old relatives passed on expectedly, we went on vacay…all that crap.
But last year, my God, things got interesting. Their 2 teens, same age as ours, went spectacularly off the rails, as you’d expect if you had ever known children of that developmental stage being raised by older parents who were married 20 years and then adopted babies. The combination of doing *everything* that the kids might possibly need to thrive plus falling asleep at 9pm and not knowing anyone who *knows* what these kids today are up to had highly predictable results. (Most of the delinquency sounded mild and recoverable-from to me, but that’s because I’m 15 years younger than these parents, have cousins in the same generation as my kid, and prioritized finding hip 20something babysitters who join the Peace Corps until my kid didn’t need babysitting…so now they meet for coffee and exchange thoughts.)
The fun parts, which I won’t share in detail, were the obvious exhaustion of the parents documenting the atrocities committed by their very typical, average, mobile-internet-and-makeup-using young teens. Nothing unexpected happened, except that the parents found out their kids are normal, and their reaction was to send a holiday letter that basically begged for an intervention from anyone with the energy to reassure them and remind them that this too shall pass.
This year’s letter confined itself to some pictures that caused me to comment: Homecoming used to involve starting the evening in the *whole* dress, didn’t it? But otherwise, no drama. As I am confined to a chair for another 36 hours, it was a crushing blow.
SG
I gave up on cards years ago, although my spousal unit sends a few out to some friends. I used to have one acquaintance who sent the long update letters and they just made me feel utterly inadequate. No one should have to read about how the husband landed a conducting job in Italy and the family is moving there for the winter and oh, by the way, the kids are becoming fluent in Italian for the trip. And friend just finished up on a concert series singing debut of hubby’s compositions. And last summer they traded houses to stay in Provence whilst friends stayed at their Upper West Side townhouse. And the fabulosity didn’t stop there. No, it went on and on and on. I am not exaggerating. And the family photo was warm and fuzzy and red plaid and eggnog and cute kids and Hallmark-ready.
I just like to get cards with pretty winter scenes and glitter. Sharing is overrated.
Brachiator
@TaMara (BHF):
Thank you, a great antidote to some of the surprising Scrooges here (hopefully some tongue-in-cheek) who seem so put upon by holiday letters.
And this year I have lost a couple of friends, including a guy who had been a friend from the moment we met in college. I would love to have a boring letter from him again.
As an aside, I find it interesting that a lot of folks here don’t do Facebook. I agree and think it is the tool of the Divil, but I have a couple of friends who live in Facebbok, and will not even look at email even though they have non-FB email apps. And some use it, with wit, not braggadocio or desperation, to post up comments on their daily life.
Meanwhile, a Tom Paxton song comes to mind here. I particularly like the Jose Feliciano cover.
It’s a lesson too late for the learning,
Made of sand, made of sand.
In the wink of an eye my soul is turning
In your hand, in your hand.
Are you going away with no word of farewell,
Will there be not a trace left behind?
I could have loved you better, didn’t mean to be unkind.
You know that was the last thing on my mind.
Baud
FWIW, I never knew Christmas letters were a thing, having never written or received any. I’m surprised to hear that they contain new information about people, since everything seems to on social media these days.
schrodinger's cat
I am with Betty Cracker on this one. Husband kitteh’s mother was not too happy with me initially, always looked upon me as the usurper who stole her golden boy. She treated me like shit when we went to India, the first time after we got married. Most of her family followed suit, in either being surly to me or ignoring me. Now after all the water under the bridge and many years later, she has decided that I am not so bad after all. Now her extended family is very nice to me but I am like, whatever.
sukabi
Congratulations Betty! That was a rant worthy of John Cole himself. (Actually thought it was John, until the end.)
Sloegin
Family newsletters mass printed on an inkjet have all the warmth of a Facebook post. Just don’t do it. Especially if you can’t even be assed to sign the damn thing.
gogol's wife
@David Koch:
She’s also in Midsomer Murders, “Tainted Fruit,” and in HOT FUZZ!
I’m too excited to see Lucy Punch to bother reading the whole thread yet.
Re holiday letters, I only get one, and it’s from a witty, interesting person, and we don’t talk all year, and I don’t Facebook, so I do enjoy it.
Omnes Omnibus
It is quite possible the most of the letter writers either are non-social media users or know a good number of people who don’t use social media. The letter is a halfway decent way of keeping up with people who don’t see of think of often, but want to lose touch with – you know, the people on your Christmas card list. I don’t send X-mas letters, but they don’t bother me at all. Buncha fuckin’ Scrooges.
Randy P
@ThresherK: Tracked it down. It’s “Tricky Business”, his second novel.
gogol's wife
@Amir Khalid:
Katzenellenbogen is a name I know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenellenbogen
I guess it’s “the cat’s elbow,” like the “bee’s knees.”
gogol's wife
@ruemara:
I love you, ruemara.
gogol's wife
@Randy P:
Now if it were John Waters I’d go see that movie.
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
I never had the pleasure but I have heard about it. One of my favorite stories from my time there was a some kid running from the cops by taking off on the road . . . The cops did chase him but why bother? There is no place to go along th way.
Mike J
Speaking of holiday letters….My dad’s sister sent one to my dad’s brother. Mentioned that she hadn’t heard from him in a while, why not give her a call? She got a call from one of his adult step kids. Turns out his wife died in September. A few days after the funeral, he picked up his computer, said he was taking it in to get fixed, and walked out the door. That’s the last thing anybody knows about him.
Schlemazel
@Randy P:
I read every edition of Nat Lamp & wish I had saved them, there were so many great moments. The magazine version of ” Vacation” was so much better than the movie (and the movie is not bad). My favorite holiday story was the family Thanksgiving dinner that devolved into the “Aristocrats” joke.
I went looking for a piece recently & found that there is no online archive. When the Dumpster suggested a national registry for Muslims I was reminded of “Children’s Letters to Himmler” a very sick set of joke letters – e.g.
“Dear Reichsmarschall, thanks for the star, now when we play cowboys I always get to be the sheriff.”
Germy
@Schlemazel: You would like the new American Bystander magazine. Issue #1 just came out. Lots of old Nat Lampoon people are involved.
Schlemazel
@Germy:
Thanks! No Mr. Mike though but worth a look.
Germy
@Schlemazel: an old poem of Mr. Mike’s is in there. Brian McConnachie, Ellis Weiner, Shary Flenniken as well as Jack Handey. It’s a feast.
Schlemazel
@Germy:
Went to their web site & they claim I can get a PDF but there is no way to order it or a hard copy wither.
Davebo
I don’t know who I hate more! The people that send holiday letters or the SCUM that thinks orange juice is just for breakfast!
Well, there’s also the people who write blog posts about shopping trips and their teenage kids.
Germy
@Schlemazel: I helped with their kickstarter and received copies of issue #1
There is contact info on the kickstarter page.
M.K. Brown is in the first issue, as well as Al Jean (Simpsons writer) and Terry Jones.
Pogonip
I’ve never sent or received a Christmas newsletter. Must be a middle- or upper-middle-class thing. We’re working-class. A name that always seemed kind of insulting to everyone else, like you’re all sitting around in front of the TV all day. Many years ago Vance Packard postulated a 5-class structure: I, the real upper class (old money and big, big new money, like movie stars); II, what we today call the 5%; class III, which encluded a lot of jobs that don’t exist any more, like secretary and receptionist; class IV, factory workers, gas station attendants, and such; and class V, the poor souls who are today called “urban” and ” white trash.”. A lot of these people are not trashy at all and would be working in class IV jobs if there were enough left.
Packard also predicted what he called “the diploma elite,” although back when he was writing requirements for college included the ability to do the work as well as the ability to pay the fee, so he predicted we’d be ruled by super-smart folks instead of by the likes of, say, Douglas Feith.
Germy
@Schlemazel: From the publisher (if you missed the kickstarter and want to order a print copy):
NEW ORDERS? YES
Backers are asking us if they can order more copies. Of course. Same goes for people who missed the campaign — we’ll sell you copies at the backers’ rates. Just email me at Publisher AT americanbystander DOT org.
Snarkworth
I guess I’m lucky that most of the people I exchange holiday letters with are people I, you know, care about. Of course I don’t need a lengthy missive from my next-door neighbor, but getting one from a college pal who lives across the country is nice.
Now, what I REALLY hate about the holidays is people who make their terrified toddlers sit on Santa’s lap, and when the kids are shrieking in panic, laugh and laugh. And take pictures.
Origuy
Somewhere I have all of the issues of National Lampoon on two CDs. I’m sure they are no longer selling it, but you might find it somewhere. Too much to do today to hunt for it, though.
Schlemazel
@Germy:
Gotta pay pal them. That means I need a paypal account
Germy
@Schlemazel: I don’t. I did it the old fashioned way. Mailed ’em a check.
Schlemazel
@Origuy:
I have “Radio Dinner” on vinyl from the days they had the radio show. I’d like to have that digitally, maybe I’ll do some googling
Pogonip
@Davebo: @Davebo: Yes! That always bothered me too. I didn’t do it to my kid.
WereBear
And if they can do that, Santa’s Lap is just the tip of the iceberg.
Brachiator
@Pogonip:
Someone will come around to confiscate your computer later today.
This is to say that notions of what is typical of any particular social class, and much of Vance Packard’s work, is probably not accurate. Probably never was.
The top 5 percent, for example, includes households with incomes of $166,000 or more. This is hardly movie star range.
In the 19th century, the wealthy tended to stick together and intermarry, also becoming the top social class. I don’t know if anyone has looked at it, but I get an impression that tech millionaires and billionaires do not appear to have the same need to socialize with old money. But who knows.
BTW, I recall seeing something a while ago that New York Times writer Alessandra Stanley will be moving from the tv desk to coverage of the uber wealthy:
WereBear
Of course not. The NYT is by, for, and about the winners!
Ruckus
@SG:
Pompous and bragging letters really are too much. I wonder sometimes if the writers even know how the story sounds, if they are amazed at how it’s going or trying to rub it in.
moderateindy
Congratulations to Betty Cracker for the most ridiculous rant of the year!!
Perhaps I missed the part where someone compelled you to read the letters. You are actually spending time ranting about a problem that has an obvious solution, a solution which actually requires absolutely no action on your part, save throwing an extra piece of paper into the recycling bin.
I wonder what type of person goes out of their way to find ludicrous crap to complain about. Something that literally has no real affect on their life. Usually that type of activity is reserved for really old, really lonely people and the average Fox news viewer, an extremely overlapping Venn Diagram to be sure.
I’ve never done an X-mas letter, not ambitious enough, but even if it’s just a letter to brag about themselves, I applaud people taking time to do something extra that a few people will enjoy.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Buncha fuckin’ Scrooges.
I resemble that remark.
NotMax
Have heard tales of these seasonal scribblings but, despite many circuits of the Sun aboard this big wet rock, have never seen one much less received one.
Denali
My most memorable Christmas letter is the one that began with the mention of the local notorious mass murder. Coming in second was the one that went on about a feud with a neighbor. Somehow these people seem to not be totally in the tune with the season. I toss the ones that go one about their yearly travels and accomplishments. The one from the retired college professor who confuses a holiday letter with a college lecture is a little much, and I am an
English major. With age comes a little longing from for and cheery, I guess.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
I sure enjoyed meeting you and reading your comments.
You aren’t alone, just far away.
Think how much different today is from say a hundred or so yrs ago, when most people only knew a few people they could walk to in less than a days time or maybe get a letter from in weeks after it was written.
WereBear
I am highly amused by all the people who are ranting about Betty’s right to rant.
Brachiator
@WereBear:
Actually, some of the best reporting on income inequality, including Krugman columns, comes from the NY Times. This includes some vivid stories about the changes that gentrification has brought to some neighborhoods.
And of course, papers like the NY and LA Times (and Washington Post) have always devoted space to the doings of the upper upper classes.
chopper
man, first world problems.
thalarctosMaritimus
@Amir Khalid: My veterinarian in Seattle for years was Tina Ellenbogen.
Brachiator
@WereBear:
I am highly amused by your reaction to other people’s right to respond to Betty’s rant.
PurpleGirl
@Chris: K, this is way late to respond but… I refuse to call the Queensborough Bridge the “Ed Koch Queensborough” because he had so very little to do with the borough at any time. Part of it was NOT in his congressional district — that came later after he stopped being a congressman. Part of Queens is part of the current district and Nydia Vasquez is the representative.
I also will not call the Tri-Borough Bridge the RFK Bridge. I still consider RFK to be a carpetbagger that came to NY because MA was still under his brother’s sway and they needed a place for RFK. (I am not and will be an RFK “liberal” groupie.)
tybee
@Origuy:
i’ll come over and help you look for them if i can bootleg a copy. :)
Satby
@WereBear: @JPL: Did I ever share the video of my boys?
/snark
Satby
@Baud: @ruemara: and others: I rely on you all to keep me sane and grounded in this crazy country. Which almost all of you will disavow, I know. But all your disembodied personas are dear to me and better to talk to sometimes than the people IRL.
justawriter
Most items in holiday letters are either self serving or boring. But once in a while you get one like the one I received from an old friend today that recounted how he and his partner wound up being the first same sex couple married in their county. Made my day.
LAC
I miss my grandmother’s letters and holiday cards and my mother-in-law’s letters, while not Oscar Wilde, were warm and welcome in our house (she hasn’t done one since my sweet father in law died) the art of writing a letter is becoming a lost one.
What a sad, cynical piece of shit post. If we are lucky a stop sign might knock some sense into you. This reads like something cole would write in the past after too much Christmas cheer.
LAC
@ruemara: ruemara, this is not a letter, but happy holidays! I love your comments and appreciate your presence here.
I am one of those sentimental types, I love cards and letters. I have all my husband’s love letters, my grandmother’s letters ( she was the first person I ever wrote a letter to as a child) among other items. I just do not understand what is so hip and cool about being an asshole about some of these things.
slag
@Schlemazel: Love that! Even better, they named it “President Barack Obama Highway”. Way to go, Florida Town!