Ahhhh, the family Christmas newsletter. A little festive missive sharing good tidings with friends and family that just barely masks the smugness of how great a year it’s been for all in your perfect little life.
Paying homage to David Sedaris — with a nod to the tongue-in-cheekness but falling well short of his creative genius — I present this season’s greetings from the Walker-Godwin household.
Hello all!
We hope this letter finds you healthy and happy and ready to put another year behind you. And what a year it has been. No doubt you know about our busy past 12 months, but let us just recap for you.
2010 started innocently enough. Jennifer was contentedly working, still at the newspaper (only on the website side of things, and no, she cannot bring back the crossword and sudoku puzzles online). Nick was still working at the paper, too, although not so contentedly. But, as always, we protagonists plow through all that is tough.
He’s back in school, as you may know, to get a fancy degree and make beaucoup money in the computering world. As you can imagine, he’s a stressed out little puppy.
Speaking of, all of the animals are good. Ella tore her doggy ACL, so there was surgery and the 8-week recovery period and the embarrassing three-legged squat to No. 2, but we’re really getting ahead of ourselves.
Back to the beginning of the year – so we work and do more work and then in May, we took a much-needed vacation to visit Nick’s parents in New Mexico. No, we didn’t go to Roswell. But we did go to Taos, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and saw plenty of remote places where aliens could indeed land and no one would be the wiser.
It was right before the vacation that Nick took a new job in his new field of study. Technically, it’s an internship, but we were excited. Less money and no benefits? Where do we sign up? It will pay off, eventually, but we knew it would mean tough times ahead. (Here’s the foreshadowing, all you English majors!)
The year was going great. We were poised for a summer of projects around the house (a new shed among them) and maybe even a trip to float the Buffalo (something we say we’re going to do every year and then never find the time to do it).
And then Jennifer started losing her vision in her left eye. That went on for about a month. Lots of eye doctors, lots of shrugs and curious “hmmmmms” from said eye doctors but no diagnosis. Still, we didn’t let a little thing like lost vision ruin our summer. We got that shed (mostly) built, Nick went to a family reunion, and Jennifer tackled the sunroom, painting it a warm orange. This may sound to you like a most obnoxious color pick, but you are missing out on her grand vision of Moroccan fantasy. Don’t worry, Nick did, too.
Come fall, the cloudy vision had cleared up. Jennifer had the success of a work project under her belt (Shameless plug: ARpreps – check it out!), and Nick was gearing up for another semester.
Then in September, Jennifer’s body decides to fail yet again, this time her legs. After a brief hospital stay, Jennifer was diagnosed with MS. Which, thanks to all for the flowers and well wishes if you sent them. If not, you aren’t getting this card so we can just say that you and your obvious schadenfreude suck.
But we don’t hold grudges – we wish everyone well, especially at this time of year. We hope for nothing but the best for you and that Santa is good to your family, even if you have been bad.
This year hasn’t turned out exactly has expected, but we are little troopers. Maybe Santa will take pity on us for the rough year and deliver goodies galore. Nick hasn’t been on the naughty list in ages.
Wishing the best to you and yours!
Jenn and Nick
One, Wild & Precious 
You had me rolling with this line: “This may sound to you like a most obnoxious color pick, but you are missing out on her grand vision of Moroccan fantasy. Don’t worry, Nick did, too.”
My sisters and I used to do dramatic readings of all the Christmas letters our family received each year.