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Christmas News Letters Example 06

A personal record for group photos.


Christmas News Navigation:

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Three short examples

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From me:

01 A practical joke
02 My grandparents die
03 English Tour
04 Barn swallows
05 Buying hubcaps
06 Group photos
07 Mr. Science
08 Backpacking, Middle English
09 Leukemia
10 Comfort Clothes
11 Marmots and Texas
12 Eagle, Turkey and Emu
12 Accident and Hike

From Alert Readers:
01 In the Foothills
02 Excess
03 Things unsaid
04 11 Kids
05 Multiple Choice
06 . . . bit my ear
07 Facts and Stats
08 Neiheisel Review
09 Family and Horses
10 Sing a Song
11 The Professional
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2008 Collection
2009 Collection
2010 Collection
2011 Collection

Parodies:
Erma Bombeck & Martha Stewart
Around the World
Coping with DUI
Defining Pretentious
The 12 McQ's

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A year with some good points but no single highlight. One of the disadvantages of raising a family late in life is breaking old patterns, particularly the ones regarding time. Given you have to be somewhere at eight o'clock and it takes an hour to get there, when do you start moving towards the door? When I was in college it took me about three minutes to throw a toothbrush, novel and clean set of underwear into the bookbag, walk down three flights of stairs and catch an A/C Transit bus to the Greyhound station. When we married I learned to allow an extra five minutes for Linda to find her keys. With three children it takes even longer, but I still find myself saying "come on, kids, let's go to the park" at 3:00 and hoping to be in the car, buckled up and moving by 3:05. Ho ho ho.

Last July Heather went to a week-long Girl Scout camp in Pinecrest, about two hours from here. Check-in time was 1:00 to 3:00. I thought it would be nice to leave at 8, sail with her at Pinecrest Lake from 10 to 1, eat lunch and deliver her to the camp at 2:00.

By dint of tying the small boat to the top of the car the night before, getting up at 6:00 and following a schedule taped to the refrigerator door, we had the car completely loaded at 7:59, and were well on the way to setting a family record. If she hadn't reached back a little too far to get her seat belt as I was slamming the rear passenger door shut on the last piece of luggage, we would have made it. It only broke one little bone, and she didn't need the fingernail anyway. She spent the week at camp with a tiny, flesh- colored splint and emerged none the worse for the experience.

The most interesting book I've read all year was by Deborah Tannen, whose argument is that women converse to network, bond and establish a common experience, while men converse to make points by proving their superior knowledge or problem-solving skills. The lady who draws the "Cathy" comic strip summarized the book in four panels last summer. "Cathy" complained about a horrible hairdo in panels one and two, her boyfriend told her three things she could do to fix it in panel three and she concluded in panel four: "Men! All suggestions, no sympathy."

Best book I read to the kids read all year was "The Practical Princess", about a princess who gets common sense from the third fairy godmother who comes to her christening. When a fire breathing dragon threatens her father's kingdom she stuffs an old dress with straw and about a hundred pounds of gunpowder, has two sturdy village lads toss it to the dragon. Whoosh, boom, dragonburger. "Dragons aren't too bright", she says.

Kenneth will be [n] this Christmas. His mobility increased enormously since he grew tall enough to reach doorknobs. He speaks in complete (though short) sentences now, and we can understand him better than 50% of the time.

Margaret started kindergarten in September. She's learning to read. We found the book that tells the Cinderella story using just 43 words (it uses them over and over and over again), much to her delight.

Linda is doing three-day events on her horses now. The judging is more subjective than it is for endurance rides, and you have to dress better.

I set a personal (maybe regional) record in June; in a group photo of Margaret's ballet class, ranging in age from 4.5 to 8, I got all nine with their eyes open, and eight out of nine smiling.

This is one page of over four dozen devoted to Christmas news letters. The main Christmas News Letters page has links to more examples, plus some general guidelines and specific suggestions for writing Christmas news letters. If you have an example, either good or bad, that you'd like to share with the rest of the world, send it to me and I'll add it to these pages.



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This page updated: June 21, 2014