Christmas Letter 2014

Christmas Letter 2014

December 6, 2014

Dear You Guys,

Today I walked into the kitchen to see Whitney working on some meaningless, Common Core, language arts homework. So like any good parent, I taunted her.  “You know what’s great about being a grown up?” I said.  “You only have ONE writing assignment a year, and the subject is always the same - ‘What we did this year….Merry Christmas’ And you actually get a better grade if it’s short.” Despite my paucity of homework, I still procrastinated writing this. 

And speaking of Whitney, she’s 11 now and getting all tweeny on us.  She is mortified by the very existence of her parents.  I think she tells her friends that she was created in a government cloning experiment, and that we’re just some people the NIH hired to look after her and to monitor her super powers.  It’s fun to drop her off at school while playing “old music” (from the 80s) loudly on the radio and yelling, “I love you!” when she gets out of the car.

And speaking of the 80s, when I was growing up I loved the “Calvin and Hobbs” comic strips.  I used to think how great it would be to someday have a son just like Calvin.  Dane is the perfect fulfillment of that wish. They even have the same haircut.  But as with all genie wishes, he comes with a blessing and a curse.  Here are some of the weird things Dane said and did this last year:

December 2013 – After not getting a roll at dinner because he wouldn’t eat his soup, Dane wrote me the following letter:  “DEAR DAD,  I HAYTE YOU.  LOVE DANE.”

December 2013 – We arrived to church on time for once and got some soft bench seats up front. (We’re usually late and sit in the back with the non-tithe payers.) This must have been the first time Dane could actually see the guys preparing the sacrament, because when they uncovered the bread to bless it he said, “Look! They’re gonna do a magic trick!”

February 2014 – Michelle was down in Dane’s face, scolding him for something, and he yelled, “SILENCE!”  He immediately walked himself to the naughty chair without being asked. 

April 2014 – Post on my Facebook wall:  “Dane was in trouble tonight, but I think I bailed him out.  I just told Michelle, ‘If you’re gonna take a 6 year old boy to a ballet recital, you can’t expect him NOT to make farting noises every time the dancers prance across the stage.  And you can’t expect his grandpa not to laugh.’” 

July 2014 – Every prayer Dane said this month included:  “Please bless Dad, that he won’t get sued or fired, and that his butt will feel better.” 

August 2014 – Dane’s Sunday school teachers brought rice crispy treats for the class today. Dane told them they tasted like “shoe leather and slugs mixed with snail guts.”  He got another trip to the naughty chair for bad manners when he got home.

November 2014 – Our kids have year round school and have a month long break in November, but most of their friends are still in school.  Today we drove past their school and Dane saw some kids on the playground, stuck his head out the window and yelled, “So long, suckers!” 

November 2014 – I tried to introduce my kids to James Bond.  We were watching the opening credits for “From Russia With Love”, with the silhouetted dancing ladies, and Dane said, “Hey! This is portography!”  We’re not allowed to watch James Bond at our house anymore.

November 2014 – While getting ready to go to Grandma’s house for his uncle’s birthday party:

“Dane, are you excited to go the Uncle Mikey’s birthday party?”

“Yeah, but I hope there aren’t any drugs.”

And speaking of writing down funny things people say, I tried to do that with Michelle this year, too.  But she just kept saying, “Stop following me around!”  “Leave me alone!” and “Stop sneaking up on me in the shower like Norman Bates.”  I didn’t get much material out of her.  I guess we’re both getting less entertaining as we enter middle age, kind of like Jim Carey. But that’s OK; we still plan on living a long, boring life together. 

So there’s my homework for the year.  Merry Christmas.  I hope you all give me a good grade.  Come to think of it, you guys can’t really help me get into graduate school, so it doesn’t really matter what you think.  So long, suckers!

Love,

K.C., Michelle, Whitney and Dane