Bah! Humbug!

I have tried really hard to be in the "Christmas Spirit" this year. Really, I have. I've been listening to Christmas music on the radio, attending parties, going to church (well, I always go to church, but I'm trying to reinforce the TRUE meaning of Christmas). Just when I think things are starting to look up and I feel a little bit cheery - BOOM! Life kicks me in the butt again and I'm back to being Scrooge.

One of my holiday pet peeves is those Christmas family newsletters that people send out with their Christmas cards. For one thing, if we are really that close, I already know all the stuff that you've been doing over the past year, and may have even done some of it with you. And if I don't know all that stuff - then why the hell are you sending me a Christmas card when you don't even care about keeping in touch with me for the past year? Usually these family newsletters serve simply as "brag letters" - boasting of the wonderful vacations their family went on this year, how Junior is making straight A's in school and playing on the All Star baseball/soccer/football team, how great a promotion Mr. Husband got this year (including a hefty raise), yadda yadda yadda. Puke. Here's my version of our family's newsletter for this Christmas:

Well, 2006 started out pretty good for us - we managed a great trip to Disney for Spring Break and even brought Bubba's Mom with us. Things seemed to be going swimmingly - and then reality hit. Since summer Hubby and I have both lost grandparents, and Hubby's boss died suddenly of a stroke. We had a rather major and hurtful feud with Hubby's family. Hubby broke his leg in two places and had to have surgery, and we also discovered that his blood pressure was so high that HE very easily could have stroked out himself. His recovery has been hellish, and altho now he has finally been given the all-clear, there were 54 days of incapacity for him, which dumped quite a burden on me. He missed a whole month of work. Did I mention he is paid solely on commission? Yeah. A month without a paycheck is rough. All that pretty much blew our holiday vacation plans away. We're also trying to sell our house because our neighbors are drug-dealing gangsta wanna-be's; today one of them drove their car all the way across our yard, from their driveway to ours, coming dangerously close to our bedroom windows along the way. Had to speak with the cops - again - about that one. You know it's a bad sign when all of the town's police officers know your neighbor by his first name. The refrigerator died today - it's only 3 years old, so we're not sure what's up with it, but everything in it is melting and it's leaking all over the kitchen floor. I'm tired, I'm broke, and I'm frustrated. Bah! Humbug!