Christmas letter

I enjoy getting Christmas letters from friends and family. It's fun to hear from people you don't see very frequently, and be reminded about why you like them. However, many of the letters I receive are filled with lengthy descriptions about children's sporting, academic, and artistic accomplishments. All interesting, but maybe too much information for my already overwhelmed little brain.

The gold standard in Christmas letters was established by my dad's stepfather, Ray W. Tobey. A schoolmaster from darkest Maine, Ray was a curmudgeonly Yankee who somehow got himself appointed to teach the offspring of the famous and monied in Connecticut. His Christmas letters were models of economy, elegance, and, if you had a really strong microscope, humor. Usually no more than one or two short paragraphs, the letters mentioned in passing his limited travels, visits from his wife's children and granchildren, and the natural world around his 19th century farmhouse. The letters were printed, without typos, on glossy paper from a local job printer, and always included a small black and white photo of the farm, the huge pine tree, or some other local landmark. That was it.

Ray is long gone, as is the pine tree. But I unconsciously compare every Christmas letter I receive to those he sent. And is that a bad legacy? As we say in Minnesota, it could be worse...

Snow!

Luis is in hog heaven. It snowed about an inch this afternoon, and he had his first snowball fight in the parking lot at a shopping mall. He thinks it is beautiful, and so it is.

Braces, just in time for the holiday season

Poor Joe High School. Today he got braces on his teeth for the second time. They are blue metal, and really hurt. The first effort was when he was much younger, the idea being that if you did it early you could avoid the full metal jacket later on. It was not to be. Poor Joe has a cross bite, ihnerited from yours truly.

Back in the day, something like a cross bite was not usually corrected unless it looked terrible. So my teeth are as nature made them.

And, there's been a cultural shift. Nowadays, nice middle class families don't just strive to give the kids a good education and some foundational backbone with which to face life. A well equipped child not only needs a college degree, but straight teeth, clear skin, waxed eyebrows, and a manicure. I suspect that the orthodontists' lobby spends hours or days at its annual conference figuring out which guilt buttons it can press.

And it works. At the ortho's office, children of immigrants whose mothers are dressed in the hijab are waiting to have their jaws expanded. Talk about acculturation....

Holiday prep, or how to avoid reality

It's discouraging. There is no snow, Joe College Grad won't be home until December 24 ("those tickets are so expensive, Mom"), and the Current Occupant seems to have no idea of the hole he has dug for us and for the world.

The CO even had a way out--the Iraq Study Group--but chose to dismiss their recommendations out of hand. I feel as if we are in an episode of the Twilight Zone or a Greek tragedy. I'm waiting for the big recognition scene, when Hamlet or Lear or George realizes what he's done and throws himself to the wolves waiting in the snow outside the White House.

But I forgot. There is no snow because of global warming. And that is just one more thing that GWB chooses to ignore. When the curtain finally comes down on this amazing period of history, the Current Occupant will still have no idea how he has disappointed his audience. He had the biggest stage in the world, and he used it to show cartoons.