Several years ago I wrote a blog about how annoying I found that lively perennial the Family Christmas Letter. You know the one I’m talking about because by now you’ve probably already gotten a half dozen of them thru the mail and you’re planning on writing yours any day now. Well, ever since then, as a protest to this lowest form of written communication, I’ve been writing my own Christmas letter, only mine doesn’t seek to paint a Pinterest/Hallmark picture of the previous year but an honest one. It includes noteworthy events from each month of 2025, the good, the bad, and the ugly. My year went something like this:
January: My first month of retirement was uneventful. The weather was lousy. I continued my 12 year boycott of the Inauguration show. I wrote a short story that maybe 175 people read. I established a new weekday morning routine of going to the Hope Cafe for coffee and a bagel.
February: I wrote a couple more short stories that even fewer people read. I was briefly scandalized when some scumbag murdered two Va. Beach police officers during a routine traffic stop. But that was ten months ago and it hasn’t crossed my mind since. My hunch is you’ve forgotten about it too.
March: Wrote two more short stories…The Reaping and Terrible Swift Sword which several hundred of you read. Started killing my daily walking/exercising commitment for 2025–not that I had neglected it for the first two months, but with the warmer weather I really amped it up.
April: This month was consumed with a complete overhaul of our kitchen. Thousands of dollars fled the safety and comfort of my checking account to give Pam the kitchen of her dreams and me a massive source of frustration. Wrote a fourth short story called High Tide. Visited my son and his wife in Nashville.
May: Started getting geeked up about the impending summer trip to Maine. Set all time record of being pissed off at contractors for 46 consecutive days. Started work on a new story that kept growing more complex every time I started writing. Spoiler alert: It ends up being novel #6 and I don't finish it until December 9th.
June: Pam retired from 18 years of being vastly underpaid as a reading specialist at River’s Edge Elementary School joining her husband in a new life of joblessness. Then we drove down to Columbia, South Carolina to be there for the birth of our first grandchild, who turned out to be a boy. Everything that happened in 2025 prior to his birth is hardly even worth mentioning. We are in love with him and so unspeakably proud of his parents.
July: Went to Maine. The weather was sensational, probably the best six weeks of weather we have ever had in our summers there. Lucy once again was in her happy place.
August: We returned from Maine and literally two days later packed up and went to be with Silas for a week. Got to briefly walk through our new kitchen for about fifteen minutes before we left.
September: By September 1st I had really hit my stride with this retirement thing. I discovered that I LOVED it and still do. Then some kid shot and killed Charlie Kirk. Actually got to see it in stunning HD. I felt kinda sick for the rest of the month.
October: Started getting up leaves. At my house this is a two month ordeal. During one day devoted to bagging the first load up into 42 gallon trashbags I threw out my back for the 28th time or so, but who’s counting? This was after I had gotten Sciatica. Not a great month for the old guy.
November: Thanksgiving was great except for the fact that Silas and his parents got sick and couldn’t make the trip up. So of course Pam and I just had to pack up and spend a week taking care of them after Thanksgiving was over.
Since December is only a third of the way through at this point I’m just gonna assume that nothing terribly noteworthy will happen over the next three weeks. All in all, 2025 has been outstanding. Health has been acceptable. Loving retirement. Loving volunteering at my church. Really love being a grandparent. Once again (and I think this is three years in a row now) 2025 was vomit-free. I curated probably somewhere between 500 and a thousand dad jokes, largely because Sherri Matthews just can’t get enough of them. I finished that novel I told you about earlier which was great fun. So yeah, a good year.
No comments:
Post a Comment