In the weeks before Christmas many of you begin composing your annual Christmas letters. These warm reminders of our friend's successes for the past calendar year usually land for a short stay scotched taped to a kitchen window or refrigerator door. My wife and I have noticed over the years that many of these letters come complete with neon smiles and anecdotes about how well Little Johnny is doing at Harvard, descriptions of his new BMW and how his name made it to the top of the "Dean's" list. But the real truth is what they lack, as they seldom relate the tragedy that stricken and strikes all of us in our daily lives. Rarely is there a note that there has been a calm passing of an elderly family member. Pain and suffering is conspicuously absent from their prose. The bright, white light that pours out of these envelopes upon opening them requires one to dawn sunglasses before succumbing to total blindness. These sugar coated, cotton candied telegrams of praise often seem to lack a warning label on their exteriors that the contents is dangerous and miss leading. So in the hopes of redeeming this annual tradition I have been wanting to write my own Fatal Christmas Letter. And maybe while you may insist that I am writing out of jealousy and envy I must endeavor to pen this dark Christmas Greeting in the hopes that you find this fictitious family worse off than you. The following words while being completely manufactured may indeed reflect many real life American hardships and struggles. In the words that follow you might see something familiar or see some truth that you would never read in your typical Christmas letter. Truth that is often covered up with a band-aid, whitewashed or swept under the rug in the hopes that the New Year will bring something real, tangible and different like our answered prayers for new hope and happiness.
Dear Smiths,
Hello? Is anyone out there? Thank the Lord 2010 has come to a final end...
Our electricity was turned off a couple of months ago. The bone chilling cold has aggravated my rheumatoid arthritis crippling my fingers making it extremely difficult to hold this ink quill and so I'll need to make this short. From deep within our misery living in Hell Bound, Minnesota where we daily scratch off the days while we await to see if indeed there is still a sun in the heavens that may one day come back and thaw the ice off our living room walls.
Fred continues on in his third straight year of unemployment after losing his job at the seven-eleven due to a shoplifting conviction. The addition of the sexual harassment allegation did not help his case any which by the way is still tied up in court. Lately, most of his time is spent by using what little change he gets from recycling, on liquor down at Moe's Bar. On another note he was arrested outside Moe's last week for indecent exposure and is patiently waiting his trail in his cell in the Hell Bound Municipal Jail.
I myself continue battling severe depression. The fumes from the neighboring formaldehyde factory which waft over and into the house seem to be helping my bi-polar condition but also make me slightly dizzy. At least with Fred being incarcerated the daily beatings he'd been inflicting on me have stopped which is allowing the bruises on my face to heal. The local power Company HBG&E has declared eminent domain on the back 25 feet of our property and will begin construction of their Hell Bound Power Link on Monday. I was wondering why they just don't work at night instead of snarling traffic all day long? They reassured us that the 100,000,00 gigawatt, coal-oil powered transmission line only caused nausea in small laboratory animals and did not seem to affect the 3 human test subjects who passed away last Friday. HBG&E construction crews have completely shut down the main road through our town so I guess there is no need to open the doors to our mortuary allowing us some much needed rest.
Little Johnny is recovering from his heroin addiction at the local methadone treatment center and is showing some signs of coming out of his coma. Caroline has taken over his paper route for the last twelve weeks so she has been unable to finish her studies at Gene Simmons Elementary School. Our teenage twins Mick and Mandy have landed jobs with a travelling carnival company called "Dire Straights" and are currently cleaning up after the elephants in the show. Although we have not received any correspondence with them in several months? But at 15 years of age what can you expect? Karl had to pawn his guitar last week in order to keep the cable satellite Internet going and pay for his tobacco habit. Needless to say he wont be playing down at Moe's tavern any longer. Molly was a singer in the band. Baby Ellie is showing signs that her two month old cold and congestion is clearing so I guess we wont need the blanket donations we received last month from the Salvation Army. Finally, some good news...We all had a warm night on Thanksgiving snuggled together in the Hell Bound Urgent Care Center. Eddie got twelve stitches in his right cheek from a freak accident he received while protesting against HBG&E's new power link. I really believe the nice HBG&E employee just did not see little Eddie standing there as he was wielding his kamas, nunchakus and Samurai katana sword. Merry Christmas, Be warm and be filled.
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