Christmas letters and other junk mail

 Everyone has received newsy family Christmas letters, sometimes including a photo of the entire family dressed in gnome footy jammies or something equally seasonal. I've read them, sometimes cringing, other times laughing. Most are quickly thrown into the recycling bin. 

In an effort to avoid the stigma of having written the boring Christmas letter, I create an annual tongue-in-cheek newsy letter every year. Each has a different theme. This year, I shared the horrors of moving to a different house ---

 Yep, we packed up the whole mess and moved it to a different place. It's a pain, but the process forced to rethink what we needed vs. what we'd saved because we had space to store it. There were MANY trips to the charity thrift store where our treasures were offered up for someone else's storage.

We hired a moving company staffed by local firemen who move furniture on their days off. It seemed like a good plan. Trustworthy firemen, carefully moving my stuff. We watched them hustle as they scurried around with boxes and furniture. My wife focused on getting the furniture in the right room in our new house (you wouldn't think that was a problem. Sofa in the living room and dressers in the bedroom. Right?) I carried around a toolbox and offered up screwdrivers, wrenches, and pliers as required. Within four hours we had one house loaded into a truck and the other house filled with furniture and boxes. And the firemen were gone!

What I hadn't anticipated was that our firemen were apparently illiterate or blind. Our carefully labeled boxes ended up wherever the firemen set them down. Boxes clearly marked "bedroom" were stacked in the garage. Others marked "garage" in the kitchen. "Kitchen" boxes were in a spare bedroom closet. Unpacking the bare essentials

 became a treasure hunt.

The first night, my wife asked, "Have you seen a box marked sheets?" The answer was, "no." I found that box on an overhead rack in the garage. The next morning, I found a box of groceries, including breakfast cereal, hidden in a bedroom closet. That discovery made me question whether all of the refrigerated and frozen foods had been unpacked.

Me,the second night: "Let's take a break and celebrate our new house with a bottle of wine!"

Wife: "Great! Where's the corkscrew?"

Me, searching through kitchen drawers: "Perhaps it's in the same box with the missing can opener and the sheets for the spare bed."

Wife: "Why not open a bottle with a screw cap."

Me: "Good idea! Have you seen one?"

Determined to make one last sweep (literally) of the old house, I opened every drawer and peeked in every closet. That included the linen closet where I found sheets for the spare bed, and an apparently overlooked kitchen drawer with corkscrew, can opener and other utensils. A Sedona souvenir turquoise necklace was found hanging from a mirror. With our old house clean, and our missing belongings in the car with the broom, we locked the door one last time and slipped the keys through the mail slot for the new owners. That night, we opened a corked bottle of wine and sat on the patio of our new home.

My wife: "The plants look a little dry. Where's the hose?"

Me, sheepishly: "I think the owners of our old house will appreciate the hose and sprinkler we left for them. Don't you?"

That's my version of the family Christmas letter. Merry Christmas 

If you need a last-minute gift or a chuckle pick up a copy of "Whistling Wedding" or "Whistling up a Ghost."

Hovey, Dean Whistling Pines series - BWL Publishing Inc.