The Tenth Day of Christmas

That's today, we haven't seen our ten lords a-leaping yet, but its the day I finally finished my Christmas Epiphany letter.

See, I started writing a letter before Christmas, but with our November/December vacation and the Christmas hustle and bustle, things got a little hectic there at the end.

First, there was the letter. What should I write about? Everyone who knows me knows I'm not usually at a loss for words, usually I have too much to say.

Last year, in the craziness that preceded our relocation to Memphis, the Christmas letter was for me a necessity, a way to inform our family and friends about the sudden and unexpected upheaval in our lives without having to make 100 phone calls.

But this year, things were different. For one thing, there was the website/mailing list. A place for keeping friends and family up-to-date and a place for me to write about stuff that's on my mind.

The people that read the website and the mailing list, they already know what's going on and most of them are on our Christmas list.

To write an explanation of what's going on for those who don't know what's going on would be beyond the scope of a Christmas letter and would be needlessly repetitious for most of the people on our list.

Writing two letters was out of the question. Writing a letter describing the kid's school and summer activities and our vacation seemed too mundane.

I almost didn't write one at all, then I almost scrapped what I did write and tried to forget about sending one out at all.

So, back to the epiphany part of it. I had a sudden perception of the essential nature of Christmas, that it wasn't supposed to be about stress.

This is not to say that there was no stress at our house, but it was less than that of many other years. We did the best we could and didn't worry about what we didn't accomplish.

New Year's Day came and went and the Christmas letter still wasn't ready to go-- what to do? After New Year's Day, it's not really a Christmas letter any more.

So today I rewrote it, our Epiphany letter, more really bad poetry, my profession is writing software, not making rhymes. All 175 copies or so are printing as I sit here. We didn't have to stay up all night to get them done. They will be postmarked on or before the Feast of Epiphany, the day of commemoration of the coming of the Magi.

-Kathleen

p.s. The tsunami death toll is at 150,000 the last time I checked, a tragedy of literally unimaginable proportions...