Holiday Horrors: Visa Bills, Fruitcakes, And Those Mind-Numbing Family Newsletters

First published December 2, 2005

You feel the familiar dread coming over you as you pull it out of the envelope - eight sheets of pink paper, covered on both sides with microscopic gray type. These pages chronicle the past twelve months in the lives of your Aunt Edith and Uncle Jake, covering everything they’ve done that was more significant than eating breakfast (and they’ve even gone ahead and documented what they consider some of their more memorable breakfasts).

It’s the Holiday Newsletter.

Reading it, you will discover that Edith and Jake’s oldest boy, Carl, is planning to go to either community college or medical school, as soon as he finishes his GED and his ninety days of community service. You learn all about the egg-candling class Aunt Edith took with her friend Sylvia, and about Uncle Jake bowling a lifetime-high 130 game in the Wednesday Night Elks Club Bowling League. All of your questions are answered regarding George the Gerbil’s tiny little coronary bypass surgery.

So how can you defend yourself against this eye-crossing hemorrhage of family information? One obvious idea would be to simply discard it unread. The problem with this is that there are always little diligence bombs planted on every page, and Aunt Edith is an expert interrogator;

“So, did you get the Newsletter?”

“Sure did, Aunt Edith. It was… um… great.”

“And?”

“And what, Aunt Edith?

“You know. Applesauce. “

“Oh, of course. Applesauce. It’s… um… great?“

“Your cousin Ralph gets run over by a truckload of applesauce and you think it’s ‘great?’”

And just like that, you’re out of the will.

My suggestion is to try aversion therapy – send all the newsletter-writers in your circle of friends and family a taste of their own medicine. Here are a few general Newsletter Themes you might use:

The “Tobacco Road” – see how much misfortune can you pack into a #10 envelope; “…We weren’t too upset when the garage burned down, since the car was already repossessed and all. After that, things got a mite better for a few days, until the following Tuesday, when the septic tank blew up…”

The “General Hospital” – the more intimate medical details you can provide, the better; “… and then I figure, what the heck, since we’re at the doctor’s to have him look at Emma’s piles anyway, let’s just go ahead and get that boil on my own butt lanced…”

The “Pet Parade” – no incident is insignificant when it comes to the little darlings; “…hairballs don’t really bother me that much, but Ed gets real upset when the cat hocks one into his dress shoes, so we decided to have little Muffikins shaved…”

The “Travelogue” – paint them a vivid picture of the places you’ve been; “…You might not think that Toxic Waste, Oklahoma would be that great of a vacation spot, but we find that it’s just about the most romantic thing you can imagine to sit in lawn chairs next to the camper, just after sunset, gazing off to the West at the soft, warm, greenish glow coming off the landfill…”

The “Incomprehensible” – keep them guessing; “…so then I told them that four hundred dollars was way too much for a vasectomy on a weekday in March, and anyway, General Motors products are definitely more reliable than giving away lab rats at the Farmers’ Market…”

Of course if all else fails, you can always just change your name, shave your head and move to Tibet. Just don’t leave a forwarding address, and don’t make friends with any monks who keep mailing lists.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball