Family Christmas Letter 2009

As we look back over the past year, and as I look to release my inner PR agent, I can only be glad that although this year was a good year, and I say that with all the flexibility that can be used with the word ‘good’. We can only hope that every year that follows this one can only be followed by better ones. With everything that has happened this past year it shouldn’t be hard, frankly just an extra scoop of ice cream would be a great improvement.

I of course exaggerate; this is of course the family Christmas letter and it could hardly be called a family Christmas letter unless an extreme amount of exaggeration were used, or, as most would like to say, creativity.

First, as most hadn’t wondered, we didn’t include a family Christmas letter last year. This was due to budget cuts. Sure, blame the economy, blame Barak Obama, I blame the leaky gas line in our furnace that caused our furnace to die thereby costing us a new furnace and heck, while your at it might as well replace the water heater. And our dog got ran over.

The big event this year was that Millie’s sister called her up saying that she was going to get married and since she was going to get married Millie was going to have to come down to Peru for a month. We booked all the flights, made the plans, we decided that I was going to stay behind since both kids were going to have to pay airfare and that my money had spent enough time in Peru that I don’t need to go and visit it. It’s too bad that things didn’t work out with Millie’s sister and her fiancé like they had planned, err… until this upcoming February. We will save that until next year’s letter.

Being on my own was great, I was able to do all the things guys like to do when they don’t have a family around to bother them. Like; clean the house, play video games, take really long bike rides, go on hikes and cry themselves to sleep.

But, after a month of lonely bliss, they came back. And like Job, after his time of suffering, his blessings were doubled, but unlike Job, they didn’t feel like blessings. For our daughter’s birthday we had conned a neighbor into letting us have one of her Chihuahua mix pups, but when my wife went to go pick her up she brought back two. If you have told your wife that she can only keep one pup of two when the pups are sleeping in your lap, then you are a much better man then I.

As if the duplicity of blessings of dogs was not enough, then God thought that I should be blessed with the blessing of in-laws. Not just “close-by-in-laws”, but “come-and-live-with-you in-laws,” and don’t forget the kids. My wife’s aunt just immigrated to the US with her two sons (5-years-old, 6-years-old). The father had to stay behind due to some curious anomaly brought to you by the US government. He should be here in the next couple of months once we sign some documents with our blood and wave good-by to our eternal

Anyway, no Christmas letter would be complete until I proved that my kids were better than anyone else’s.

This year our little girl entered into first grade, since kids these days have it too easy, we had to walk to school uphill both ways, in ten feet of snow, barefoot. We decided that she was going to get involved in the French Immersion Program, in other words, she speaks English the first part of her school day, French the second half and Spanish when she gets home. We have finally gotten her to sleep in her own room through the ancient art of bribery. She now reads and can use the computer. Daddy now has to have a special password to use the computer.

Our son was attending a special pre-prechool program in Provo until he aced their test and they said he couldn’t go anymore. I never thought I would have to teach him the art of dumbing it down when he was three.

The 2008 Christmas Letter

Last year I started a little tradition. That of adding a little family letter to our Christmas cards. I've tried to stay away from the standard format of general boasting and just wanted to give people a laugh.

Once again the Breakdown family is sending you the most valued gift a person can hope to receive during the Christmas season. A greeting card and a piece of paper that you can display in your front room so that you can show everyone that visits your house that you really do have friends and family that go through the trouble to mail you something at least once a year, and probably you have more of them then the person that is visiting you. Awww, the spirit of the holidays. So without further adieu, I will now fill the page as to impress upon anyone glancing at it that I have a lot to say without actually reading it, because if they did happen to read it, they would find the opposite to be true.

As for me, Breakdown, this year I have made a number of wonderful accomplishments. The first and foremost being that I have achieved the long sought after title of every father and man of any household across the nation if not the world. That of no longer being the hairiest member of the family, or the stinkiest, but since we still have a child in diapers I never really got the title of being the smelliest. We got a dog. I also installed a fence at our house, that is to say I installed it by calling a couple of guys, got a couple of bids and then paid them to put it in. The fence and the dog has resulted in a dispute with the post office as both are in the way of them getting to my mail box. I told them to just hold my mail, I'm at the post office everyday anyway, but they refuse to hold it. I guess it's only fun to hold a person's mail if it's an inconvenience.

Mrs. Breakdown also has had a number of wonderful accomplishments. The one that she is most proud of is that she continues to kick me out of the house everyday to go to work at a very unreasonable hour leaving her the ability to stretch out across the bed in pure, blissful comfort. Mrs. Breakdown also believes that the fact that her mother visited us this year was also an accomplishment but the jury is still out on that. Oh yeah, and there is that thing about becoming an American Citizen but like I told her, “Who isn't?”

Litte Miss Breakdown has reached the delightful age of five. Which means she is a sixth of my age and a quarter of my wife's age, which is the age at which my wife will remain no matter what her diver license says if I know what's good for me. As she reaches the age of five she has started kindergarten and has already let me know that although I am her father it doesn't mean that she has to be seen with me, especially around her friends. Little Miss Breakdown has begun to discover the wonders of language. She finds that if she doesn't want to do something that she can dispute it with her teacher just long enough so that time will run out and she won't have to do it. She has also taken to giving fashion advice to my wife as to type, style and model of clothing she wears. I can say with complete confidence that any and all hair loss that I have suffered this past year is in direct relation to my daugher's actions, or because my grandfather was bald. I tend to believe the former.

Little Breakdown continues his education in the very complicated art of little-brothery. He has mastered the art of getting his finger close enough to annoy his sister but not actually touch her resulting in Little Miss Breakdown's cries of “He's touching me!” Little Breakdown's reply “No I'm not,” my inevitable shout of “Keep it down or I'll tell your mother!” and my wife's exclamation of “Why do I have to be the bad guy?” Little Breakdown's exploits have had such lasting effects as can still be seen in the form of a purple crayon on the living room wall, a slightly darker stain on the downstairs carpet and the smell of decaying Cheetos emanating from somewhere in the house.