My father receives a Christmas letter every December from an elderly English couple he and my mom met back in the 1960s. Written entirely without irony, every missive mentions not only the exciting events, but also the major maladies and trivial calamities of the previous year. The tone reminds me of the doleful Eeyore, who was also English, before he became a Disney property.
You have to love the fact that this is a polar opposite of the much-mocked bragging of most Christmas letters. From this year’s mailbox, here are my favorite phrases.
In London, we went to the Globe Theatre to see “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (it rained.)
We finished our gallivanting with a week in our son’s new apartment in Gibraltar where the weather was disappointing (28 hour thunderstorm).
(And drumroll please:)
June saw us on holiday in West Sussex which D. found disappointing because there were too many trees to get decent views of the landscape.
Cymbal crash! A.A. Milne could not have written it better.
