[Clutch Munny]

GD, that is totally the letter we are sending.

Since you like it, and since they aren't posted here on the Forum of Forums (Fora? Forum the bell tolls?)... I include the past two letters as well:

2002: That Was the Year That that Year Was

Holiday season again, and time to pass on the news of our year. As years go, we found this one to have twelve months, more or less. All of them were jam-packed with fun, action, multi-player battles, secret levels, and cheat codes.

No, just kidding. In fact the year was a bit more quiet around the house than previous years, since the kids have grown up enough to be placed in textile sweatshops. They often complain about the working conditions – as if light and ventilation were essential to life! – but underneath it all I’m pretty sure they value the responsibility we’ve placed on them. And heaven knows we’ll need the money when it comes time to flee the country!

Colleen’s teaching went well, until her condition re-appeared after several years of dormancy. I’d been surprised to learn that it could go dormant at all, but a careful diet that avoided seafood and all other forms of nutrition had kept it in check till now. The student she bit is recovering well, and is expected to walk again if the artificial hip lives up to its early promise. Unfortunately, in the confusion of her psychiatric disorder, the “incident”, and her staff room oath that her colleagues would “come to know the meaning of terror”, it emerged that Colleen was not Catholic. Of course, standards are standards, and this discovery led to the termination of her contract with the Catholic Board of Education.

School wasn’t boring for the children, either. Annalise especially enjoyed chatting and visiting with her many new friends. However, since she was all alone on these occasions, this was just another cause for concern among her teachers, care-givers, and law-enforcement officers. But what a sense of humour! We’d told her the little joke about having stolen her from the gypsies as a baby, which she enjoyed as much as the next kid. But how many children would have the waggish wit to go out and actually steal a baby from a gypsy family, just to see our reaction? Well, the extra mouth is a burden, but you can’t deny a great joke.

Madeleine’s bout with Spanish Screaming Disease has almost run its course. We were sceptical when the diagnosis first came in – “Like Tourettes,” we were told, “but louder, with gestures, and a fixation on turbot. Oh, and in Spanish” – but the blood test proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt. She had to be home-schooled when the disease left her anti-social, paranoid, and slightly backwards. Happily, this placed her in the upper two percent of home-schooled children, and we have since been granted a four million dollar research grant by the Fraser Institute to produce an action plan called Even More Choices in Education.

Sadly, this idyll has been tarnished by George, who at two years of age spent the year under a severe delusion of grandeur that caused him to claim he was three. We explained his birthday, and counted the years for him again and again, until it finally became clear that he was claiming to be Three. That is, George believes himself to be a Trinity. He will often refuse to eat his dinner unless we tell him that it’s merely an accidental mode of a simple substance that will participate in his digestive essence without changing it. I don’t have to tell you what that means!

And me? Well, it’s the same old, same old: stuntman work when I can get it, freelance “marital aids” advisor, convenor of the annual whitewater knitting marathon, and CSIS informant. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say it was a very interesting year for some of you, judging from the files I’ve seen. Happy holidays!


2003: A Look Back at the Year in Review: A Retrospective


Another year has passed us by, full of many occasions and several events. In recognition of the holiday season, we’re sending you the news of our past twelve months, along with a smile, some holiday cheer, and a DNA sample that’s probably too small for you to notice.

Life is good for all of us, just like always. It’s hard to believe that we’re less than a year from having all three kids in some form of institution! Colleen is betting it will be school all around, but I say, Never say never! Certainly George is looking forward to joining his sisters at school, where they have been playing an intricate game called “Shakedown” with their classmates. I’m not entirely clear on the rules, but it sounds like the usual dolls, and stuffed animals, and imaginary lit matches held to fingertips. They even take real matches as props! Though they always forget to bring them home again, the scamps. However the game works, it seems to keep them in spending money.

Colleen is still teaching at the same school, having turned down a transfer to Our Lady of Illicit Procedures Collegiate. It was a rewarding year for her, in the sense that she received cash rewards for turning in several of her students. She was also able to engage the minds of several others, focusing them on the benefits of education, and away from a life of gang violence and corporate accounting. The ugly past incidents with other staff members have been expertly smoothed over and forgotten, through a combination of excellent interpersonal skills and a 700% annual staff turnover.

Annalise is her precocious little self, always befriending and petting some neighbourhood animal or other, before quickly stuffing it in a sack and feeding it to one of her “test subjects”. I have to admit, I wondered at the time whether a cage full of reptiles and a gene-splicing kit was the best birthday present, but I think the results more than speak for themselves. She has an intimate grasp of biochemistry, and the local stray animal population is tightly controlled. Of course I have to give her the occasional, “As long as you live under this roof, you won’t meddle with forces of nature you can’t possibly understand until your homework is finished” talk. But that’s just a normal part of growing up.

Madeleine greatly enjoyed working through the second Harry Potter book this year, a sign, we think, of impressive literacy for a five year-old. She’s enraptured at the adventures of the books’ heroes and protagonists, and if she’s disappointed when Harry Potter beats them, she’s always hopeful about the next volume. “Sooner or later,” she giggles, “that smug little do-gooder will roast on a spit” Her charm and very subtle sense of irony continue to shine through in everything.

George has now almost completely succeeded in moving into the house of our elderly neighbours. Disappointed with the lack of privacy and personal space afforded him by his sisters, he realized in late May that our neighbours, both in their nineties, could hardly hear and can only see motion. Throughout the summer he would quietly slip into their house when they opened their door to glare at passing teenagers. Then he’d spend a relaxing day wandering around, watching the upstairs television, and raiding the refrigerator. As long as he freezes against the wall when they enter the room, he goes undetected. Having donned frilly-curtain camoflage to covertly remove him on a couple of occasions, I decided it was better to let the behaviour sort itself out. He has since taken a suitcase over, but as long as he eats here, we’re a family.

And me? Well, you know. Still just dynamiting the mango wagon, as the saying goes. Happy holidays to you, and all our love!