It’s as much a part of Christmas as unbearable stress and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”: the card/letter telling everyone all the amazing, remarkable, high-status stuff the sender’s family did during the past year.
Westport is, in a way, a family. A dysfunctional one, sure, but a family nonetheless. If we sent out a Christmas letter, here’s what it would say:
Hard to believe 2010 is almost over! So much has happened over the last 12 months. We’ve been on the go all year. We’re sorry we haven’t kept in better touch, but you know how busy a growing community can be!
It was an exciting year on the college front! All our kids got into schools — yes, every one of them! Not all of them should go, of course — some should work, take a year off to travel or find themselves, or even join the military — but since when have kids known what’s best for them? We’re excited to see them leave the nest, though we also look forward to hovering over it to make sure they make all the right decisions, and nothing bad ever happens to them!
An intimate vacation.
Speaking of travel, we enjoyed a number of wonderful vacations this year. We took cruises in the Caribbean and around Alaska. We went to Europe many times, as well as South America, Asia, the Antarctic, even Africa for the World Cup. Do you know they have automobiles and roads in South Africa? What a pleasant surprise!
We traveled so much, we were not around to protest that awful increase in the education budget. How appalling that town officials wanted us to pay for things like small classes, art and music. It would have cost us an extra 75 cents a day, which is totally out of line. Hopefully, this year we’ll be here in town to say “enough is enough!”
One of our most enjoyable trips was to Guatemala. We went on a service project, to build toilets for poor, starving people with quaint customs and delightfully raggedy clothes. We learned quite a bit, and will never forget that those people are just like us, only browner. We hope to continue our community service work next year in another, even further off, exotic land. Thank goodness no communities near Westport need help!
Speaking of the home front, we are in the midst of an enormous renovation. Well, not renovation exactly — we’re tearing our house down to the ground! It was built way back in 2004, and has only 6 bedrooms, a 3-car garage and a very small bowling alley. Needless to say we were the laughingstock of our neighborhood. Our new home is still not too big — only 27,000 square feet — and we have worked hard to retain the warmth of our “old” one. We look forward to having you all over, just as soon as we finish decorating it in 2019.
It’s not just picking out all the right furniture, accessories and envy-inducing appliances that takes time. There’s the minor matter of the fact that we lost our job 15 months ago, and haven’t worked since. Well, we’re actually “consulting,” so no one will know we’re unemployed (LOL). Thank god for credit cards 🙂
Our new car!
Despite tough economic times, we did splurge on a new car. We thought about getting a hybrid, because around here they are both cool and hot. (Not to mention “environmentally friendly,” whatever that means.) But we decided instead on a Lincoln Navigator. It doesn’t exactly “navigate” well, but it’s sooooo much more effective at intimidating other drivers, cutting into lanes and zooming through red lights. We know, we know, it’s pretty hard to park, but hey, you can’t have everything. We just take 3 spaces, at whatever angle we want — that solves that problem!
So that was our 2010! We really must get together soon! Let’s do dinner in Fairfield. We would say Westport, but there’s nothing here anymore. Not even the Y, we don’t think. Maybe it is, but we’re not sure.
We haven’t been downtown in a decade.
