One the things about this time of year that really irritates
me is the Grand Yuletide Letter some people seem to send out indiscriminately (and ill-advisedly
to my mind). You know the kind of
thing, at least you will once you’ve received one. There’s a formula to it, rather like an Enid
Blyton book. It’s not actually for you, it’s for the world in general and
it’s not really a letter, it’s a platform for a self-important, swaggering rave
about how wonderful they are, how very, very clever their children and
grandchildren are, and how many simply splendid places they have visited and
prizes they have won during the past year.
It’s full of names you don’t recognize (never an explanation as to who
they might be) and the intention is to make you reflect upon how dull
irrelevant your own life is together with those of your immediate family – and what
is more, how very lucky you are to be on the sender’s Christmas Letter List.
For the curious, it goes something like this:
Hello All, just grabbing a moment or two to send a little Christmas
Cheer to friends and family and let you know how the year has treated us.
Myra has been awfully busy of late finishing her International Degree in Banking
Law whilst officiating nightly at the Ebola Clinic and thankfully managed to
complete it all with Honours. She’s so
relieved as at one stage she thought she might have to delay it all until next
year. We have now re-negotiated our
weekends with Babs so that the twins only come to us every third weekend as it was
getting a bit much trying to accommodate their violin and skating classes and Myra was
getting tired. They are both doing
fantastically well – due to play a duo at the Town Hall in February.
Tyrone has been offered three film parts for this coming year and is
wondering which one to take.
Hamish and Zac conquered that Everest North Face climb last month - the youngest in the group again!
Juanita and Maurice booked in for a walk through Nicaragua but just
before they were to leave the divorce came through so in the end only Juanita
went. Maurice is currently sky-diving at
Cape Wrath where he has just bought a holiday cottage. It used to be a hunting lodge so a bit
drafty but he’s almost completed the alterations. Did a lot of it himself as it was so
expensive flying tradesmen up to the Cape.
You will remember our youngest, Elissa.
Well she’s now quite grown-up at eighteen and finished her combined
Maths & Physics degree rather early so opted for a gap year in Trinidad
before choosing one of the positions she’s been offered. She certainly has zest for life – we were
surprised to hear via the Family Notices columns in The Herald that she had
recently given birth to a son. It was rather
touching – it said, `To Elissa, daughter of Myra and Tom of Auckland, a son
born in Trinidad’. Myra said it sounded a bit like a virgin birth. Apparently she delivered him herself and the
afterbirth was turned into pate and eaten at the birth celebrations! Well, they all do these odd things these days
don’t they?
Christian got married this year of course to one of the Astor
girls- a great great niece of Nancy. They are having to live as tax
exiles in Jersey so unfortunately we don’t see as much of them as we would like
to.
Hope all is well with your lot. Keep
in touch! Tom, Myra & The Gang.
Love it. Made my day reading it!
ReplyDeleteCatherine Tait....you are very kind. J
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