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icarusThe Holiday Letter and Why It Must Die
WG and I are back from our trip to his relatives. I feel like I have to strip off chainmail, drop the battle ax on the floor, un-hunch my shoulders, unbuckle the bucklers, to slump into the couch and try to recover. If I step into the shower I'm sure blood will run down the drain, not all of it mine.
His family is the sort where I wish I could hire a black actor to pose as WG's gay lover and leave their heads spinning.
WG's mom is not well, but I'll leave that for another post when I'm less physically and emotionally wrung out. Everyone I owe comments and emails to, I'm sorry. I'll get to it as soon as I can. It's taken two days to remember that I don't have to defend everything WG and I do, second-guess every smile, attempt to read through the pleasant bullshit and the occasional harsh comments like stabs in the back.
Which brings us to the holiday letter. I have the one from WG's sister in hand.
The holiday letter is already a bad idea. First, a letter is meant to be personal. Sending a xeroxed copy to 900 of your closest friends and relatives means that you can't tailor it to your audience. The holiday letter therefore is by necessity tiresome and bland.
Second, the fact that it's a holiday letter forces one to include only happy, upbeat news. This wrings the letter dry of anything your friends and family actually want to hear (how you really are) and replaces it with a layer of falsehood as phony as a wild west storefront. Everyone is left either rolling their eyes or reading between the lines.
Third, the need for approval from part of your audience (mom and dad, Aunt Mabel?) causes one to puff it up with all the accomplishments of your family, i.e., bragging. We're back to that problem of audience again. What's appropriate and pleasing to Aunt Mabel is noisome and irritating to your best friend from high school.
Fourth, and this is what happened to WG's sister this year: how do you write a light and superficial account of a bad year? The year your mother started chemotherapy that didn't take and you're at the end of your rope? The year your daughter finished college but now has to struggle with barista jobs while she finds work? The year your son did nothing noteworthy, is in a career path that isn't brag-worthy, and your husband edged one step closer to retirement because he needs more time to keep you from falling apart?
The smart person skips the holiday letter that year. The foolish attempt to gerrymander the facts and end up with a steaming tower of bullshit. Allow me to read a few choice bits (Icarus shoves glasses up the bridge of her nose):
Their daughter has "launched herself into the working world" and is "sending out resumes while holding down three part-time jobs, including coffee barista (but not at Starbucks!)."
Their son is in his third year of college learning construction management and "loves life."
Her husband made a big change with the goal to "allow more time to pursue life and liberty (and golf)."
She (remember, end of her rope?) is "still staying off the streets" while working at the paper. "Somebody needs to get the news out."
Not word one about anything real.
I ask you all to please, don't do the horrible holiday letter. But if you must, save your dignity and skip the bad years. Those poor little facts can't stretch that far. Your best friend from high school, tormented as she's been by years of your bragging, can tell.
P.S. On the back of ours she wrote how great it was to have us over (like hell...) and how much she enjoyed their gift basket (she hated it, we could tell). No wonder WG's bullshit detector works so well.
Appendix one: The full text of that letter, for those who are interested or are fortunate to never have received one and don't know what I mean.
Happy Holidays from [place name deleted]!
Of course, that's not where we took our family photo this year. That'd be on Seattle's Lake Union in June, when the [name] and [name] clans gathered to celebrate [daughter name]'s graduation from the University of Washington! (It was also [husband name]'s 54th birthday. Nice present, eh, Dad?)
We're delighted for [daughter name], who's now launched herself into the working world. Immediately after graduation, she left for London, where she spent 3 months working for a British newspaper chain, commuting via the tube in Wimbledon. She's now back in Seattle, sending out resumes while holding down three part-time jobs, including coffee barista (but not at Starbucks!).
[Son name]'s now in his 3rd year in the Construction Management program at [university name], and loves life, He spent his summer working in commercial construction, applying what he learned all year in the classroom.
[Husband name] made a big change: after 27 years as sole owner of [company name], he's taken on two partners! His goal, with this new direction, is to keep the company young and fresh, while allowing more time to pursue life and liberty (and golf).
I'm still staying off the streets while working at the [newspaper name] as the paper's Assistant Business Editor. Somebody needs to get the news out.
May you cherish the moments with friends and family this holiday season and throughout the New Year!
(Yes, keep the last line, and write it on the Christmas cards.)
WG and I are back from our trip to his relatives. I feel like I have to strip off chainmail, drop the battle ax on the floor, un-hunch my shoulders, unbuckle the bucklers, to slump into the couch and try to recover. If I step into the shower I'm sure blood will run down the drain, not all of it mine.
His family is the sort where I wish I could hire a black actor to pose as WG's gay lover and leave their heads spinning.
WG's mom is not well, but I'll leave that for another post when I'm less physically and emotionally wrung out. Everyone I owe comments and emails to, I'm sorry. I'll get to it as soon as I can. It's taken two days to remember that I don't have to defend everything WG and I do, second-guess every smile, attempt to read through the pleasant bullshit and the occasional harsh comments like stabs in the back.
Which brings us to the holiday letter. I have the one from WG's sister in hand.
The holiday letter is already a bad idea. First, a letter is meant to be personal. Sending a xeroxed copy to 900 of your closest friends and relatives means that you can't tailor it to your audience. The holiday letter therefore is by necessity tiresome and bland.
Second, the fact that it's a holiday letter forces one to include only happy, upbeat news. This wrings the letter dry of anything your friends and family actually want to hear (how you really are) and replaces it with a layer of falsehood as phony as a wild west storefront. Everyone is left either rolling their eyes or reading between the lines.
Third, the need for approval from part of your audience (mom and dad, Aunt Mabel?) causes one to puff it up with all the accomplishments of your family, i.e., bragging. We're back to that problem of audience again. What's appropriate and pleasing to Aunt Mabel is noisome and irritating to your best friend from high school.
Fourth, and this is what happened to WG's sister this year: how do you write a light and superficial account of a bad year? The year your mother started chemotherapy that didn't take and you're at the end of your rope? The year your daughter finished college but now has to struggle with barista jobs while she finds work? The year your son did nothing noteworthy, is in a career path that isn't brag-worthy, and your husband edged one step closer to retirement because he needs more time to keep you from falling apart?
The smart person skips the holiday letter that year. The foolish attempt to gerrymander the facts and end up with a steaming tower of bullshit. Allow me to read a few choice bits (Icarus shoves glasses up the bridge of her nose):
Their daughter has "launched herself into the working world" and is "sending out resumes while holding down three part-time jobs, including coffee barista (but not at Starbucks!)."
Their son is in his third year of college learning construction management and "loves life."
Her husband made a big change with the goal to "allow more time to pursue life and liberty (and golf)."
She (remember, end of her rope?) is "still staying off the streets" while working at the paper. "Somebody needs to get the news out."
Not word one about anything real.
I ask you all to please, don't do the horrible holiday letter. But if you must, save your dignity and skip the bad years. Those poor little facts can't stretch that far. Your best friend from high school, tormented as she's been by years of your bragging, can tell.
P.S. On the back of ours she wrote how great it was to have us over (like hell...) and how much she enjoyed their gift basket (she hated it, we could tell). No wonder WG's bullshit detector works so well.
Appendix one: The full text of that letter, for those who are interested or are fortunate to never have received one and don't know what I mean.
Happy Holidays from [place name deleted]!
Of course, that's not where we took our family photo this year. That'd be on Seattle's Lake Union in June, when the [name] and [name] clans gathered to celebrate [daughter name]'s graduation from the University of Washington! (It was also [husband name]'s 54th birthday. Nice present, eh, Dad?)
We're delighted for [daughter name], who's now launched herself into the working world. Immediately after graduation, she left for London, where she spent 3 months working for a British newspaper chain, commuting via the tube in Wimbledon. She's now back in Seattle, sending out resumes while holding down three part-time jobs, including coffee barista (but not at Starbucks!).
[Son name]'s now in his 3rd year in the Construction Management program at [university name], and loves life, He spent his summer working in commercial construction, applying what he learned all year in the classroom.
[Husband name] made a big change: after 27 years as sole owner of [company name], he's taken on two partners! His goal, with this new direction, is to keep the company young and fresh, while allowing more time to pursue life and liberty (and golf).
I'm still staying off the streets while working at the [newspaper name] as the paper's Assistant Business Editor. Somebody needs to get the news out.
May you cherish the moments with friends and family this holiday season and throughout the New Year!
(Yes, keep the last line, and write it on the Christmas cards.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-31 07:47 pm (UTC)But this The year your son did nothing noteworthy, is in a career path that isn't brag-worthy, is quite possibly the only thing you've ever said that has or *could* offend me ::rueful shake of head:: Just because you're not interested in CM doesn't mean it isn't brag-worthy. As the proud holder of a BS in CM for over 20 yrs, I have done a lot of brag-worthy things in my career path. The latest being sheparding a LEED silver-certified library from foundation to opening day. For the uninitiated, LEED stands for leadership in energy and environmental design, and silver is a step-up from basic for a building that is designed to use a high percentage of recycled materials, conserve energy in all kinds of ways and educate the general public on just how easy, affordable, and accessible it is to build sustainably.
I've also done a wide variety of environmental remediation projects, cleaning up messes made by people and companies that didn't know any better when they made them. I've worked for corporate clients that have surprised the hell out of me with their progressive stances on environmentalism, and that's just my experience. Construction Managers build our infrastructure as well as our most amazing projects. We wouldn't have the MOMA or Golden Gate Bridge or Eiffel Tower or Hoover Dam or SLAC without them. And as a side-benefit, CMs are paid pretty-damn-well; these days, many get 6-figure salaries.
A summer in commercial construction toting bricks, picking up trash or filing approved submittals teaches a young CM what life on the site is really like, and hopefully prevents him from showing up in the middle of winter in a thin leather jacket and dress shoes. If he's smart and keeps his eyes and mind open during the experience, it gives him credibility when he has to look his first engineering jerk in the eye and say "your design isn't going to work that way, but we *can* do this and get what you intended." Practically the only thing that gives me more pleasure than hearing "your kids are wonderful" is driving by a building I built, or a site I cleaned up and saying "I did that." And you know what? Even the guy who was only a day labourer gets to say that. I'm always excited to meet anyone considering a career in "the trades." I love my work, and I admire the people who actually fit the bricks and mortar together as much as those who dream up the designs.
My little rant may not change your mind about CM at all, and that's okay, but WG's nephew is getting ready to do something really fun, important and challenging. Don't belittle his choices because his mom is an idiot.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-31 08:29 pm (UTC)WG's family judges WG for this, however, and his sister's the one who doesn't think her son's job is brag-worthy. They're a bunch of snobs if you ask me.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2006-12-31 09:19 pm (UTC)So. Snobs and idiots. Always my favorite combination, especially in family members. I'm far too familiar with the combo too, as I can't discuss my job with my mom unless I'm doing a stint inside the office, complete with hose, heels & makeup. And even then it's a touchy subject, which is just weird, considering she was married to a landscaper for 37 years!
But Happy New Year, anyway. I hope it brings better circumstances for you and yours than 2006, plus time to write more of your excellent
pornfiction.