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...
Actually, two out of three are no longer teenagers. But even Joe College Grad appears to be in that limbo between student behavior and adulthood that apparently plagues Italian male children until about age 40. Example: the lad has a voucher for up to $500 for a Continental/Northwest ticket. He wanted to use it to come home for his winter break. He couldn't figure out how to get it to work. Between his girlfriend and me, we got it done. And he was a Phi Beta Kappa....
Joe College refuses to take money in the form of an established allowance for his living expenses, i.e., rent, food, etc. He prefers to ask as the need arises. When I point out that if he were living in a dormitory, I would be paying this and more, he rolls his eyes. But when he shows up for dinner, I know that there will be an indirect request for a check before leaving. My goal is to get him to take a pre-determined amount of money and either save it or spend it. If it's gone before the end of the month, so be it. My recollection is that OLGS was very similar with his dad. I, on the other hand, have little problem taking money...
Joe High School is in some ways the most grown up. Is there an inverse relationship between age and behavior in teenage boys? As a 10th greader, he is getting recruiting letters from various colleges and universities as the result of a test he took. He was very dismissive until he got letters from the University of Chicago, Duke, and Washington University in St. Louis. It was nice to see him figure out that there was a relationship between his performance on the test and the receipt of the letters. Input equals output...
She was one of my heroes. She wrote so well. And surprisingly for a Smithy, she was so unpretentious. And she loved Texas. It went with the rest of her--it was all part of the package.
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.
