Christmas Letters and The Writer Strike

Supposedly writers are on strike in Hollywood. I suspect they just took a break to write Christmas letters.

This is a beautiful time of year. I'm grateful to still be on the Christmas letter lists of a few people. Desperate Housewives, Smallville, Heroes, Brothers and Sisters, Somebody's Anatomy, they're all there in the mail box. Amazing children. Talented athletes. Why doesn't anybody write about the kid who got an F? "Bobby had a subpar year adjusting to seventh grade. Except for Gym, Bobby had all F's on his report card. We'll use the his interest in kickball to build on the Incomplete."

If I didn't have a child of my own, I couldn't fully comprehend the disturbing news parents around the country receive from orthodontists. "Our little princess got braces this year. The orthodontist says she will need to wear them for 18 months. This has totally ruined her life." How does one recover from that? Avoid the orthodontist. Is it possible that braces are a status symbol or are children ingesting something hazardous to their teeth? In 1972 only children of doctors and lawyers had teeth bad enough to require braces.

On a typical hospital show people survive burst arteries, heart transplants with a butter knife and a Bic pen, operations to seperate cojoined body parts, and your average missle impalement. Watching these miracles in high definition on a 42 inch screen of millions of tiny mirrors, makes it hard for me to muster up any empathy for letter writer's plantar warts, braces, caps, acne rashes, exotic fish stings, vacation sunburns, weight gains, intestinal blockage, bum knees... I'm emotionally drained from Keeping Up With the Kardashians. If that sex tape gets back on the internet, God knows what will happen to Kim's budding career and gargantuan ass.

Drama Drama. But few dramas compare to the sadness and depresion caused by a child leaving for college. Unless this child is going to the Universtiy of Heaven, the College of War in Afghanistan, or Iraq, there is a road, a plane, or a train running to the campus community. Telephones and internet allow immediate communications. I'm not a fan of the show "My Kid Went to College and I'm Sad." Where's the remote?

Why do we write Christmas letters? And who created the boiler plate? (Job. Travel. Aches and Pains/Bodily Functions. Kid accomplishments. My possessions.People who pissed me off.) I wish I would have kept all the letters we've received in the last 25 years. What I think we would see is this: The little angels, geniuses, and super athletes would grow up to be average folks. (But their offspring would be the second coming of Christ) The aches and pains would be overcome, or not. Overbites would be corrected without lingering long term mental health trouble. Amazing jobs would be left and new amazing jobs secured. College, like Kindergarten and high school, would be adjusted to and finished, if not completed.

If writers had an editor in the family the letter might be reduced to:

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth. Goodwill to All. But what kind of message would that be?