The Christmas Alphabet

I discovered at an early age that wherever "hip" was located, I was always going to be in the next room. Or maybe "cool" was just being sequestered at an Unknown Location. In any case, I wasn't very old before I came to terms with -- maybe even embraced -- my nonhipness.

Perhaps it was inevitable anyway, for a skinny kid with glasses, always the youngest in my class, not athletically gifted, but pretty successful academically. Compound that with the fact that, as someone in a position to know said recently, I was born old; all of this is unlikely to add up to someone who will ever be anointed as an Arbiter of Style.

So instead, when other kids wore jeans & sneakers to school, I was wearing doubleknits (OK, I just dated myself) and sports shirts and dress shoes. When the popular kids were waiting for class to be over, I was the kid with his hand up -- not just to answer the question but to be first to answer. And although I was, as you might guess, not invited to the cool parties, I'm pretty sure that the playlist at those parties did not include Barry Manilow.

And I'm equally convinced: they don't know what they were missing!

With all of that, you'd think I would be prepared to land on the Unhip List yet again, but I was a bit caught off-guard this year by all the abuse heaped on writers of Christmas letters. Both the comics pages and several columnists I've read recently have had caustic things to say about the level of truth contained in such letters, as well as the level of interest on the part of their readers.

I suppose some people probably write to induce envy; perhaps some get bogged down in minutiae unintelligible to 'outsiders'; maybe some test the tensile strength of the truth. As for me, I got the idea to write an annual letter from my mom, and I've been writing our family's letter since... well, I think the first couple were printed on a dot-matrix printer, for anyone who's ever seen one of those in a museum. I try my best to make them interesting for all possible readers (of course, I try the same with the blog, and look how that's working out); I also resist the temptation to exaggerate or even brag. And as I write, I always keep in front of me a few specific goals, stated here in no particular order:

• A basic recap: This part may be more for me, but I like to summarize the most important parts of the year (very) briefly.
• A shorthand character sketch: Since our marriage we have lived in 4 towns in 3 states, and made & left behind friends all along the way. The letter is a way for them to see what we've been up to, as a window on who we are now (well, not me -- I haven't changed since I was about 7). This is particularly important for our more recent friends, many of whom are very fond of our kids. I labor the hardest to paint the kids' picture: not of "what they do", but more of "what they're like".
• Coherently written: Especially in the years B.B. (Before Blog), the letter served as an outlet for my literary impulses. My wife is grateful that the release valve of the blog has lessened my inclination to write jokes in the Christmas letter. Actually, I am too; it saves me the trouble, since she always took them all out anyway.
• A spiritual undertone: I have always tried to make it clear to our readers (not all of whom are Christians or church-affiliated) that for our family, Christmas is much more than a jolly fat guy in a red suit. I try not to command anyone to find a Bible and open to Luke chapter 2, since not everyone is thrilled with a full-fledged sermon in their mailbox. Still, there's always the chance that some reference might touch a heart in some way.
• A gentle prod for response: I don't think we're alone in this, but of the people whose company we enjoy who we don't see regularly, only perhaps a tenth are in any kind of regular touch. I always put a commercial at the end of the letter saying, please contact us -- maybe the unintended subtext is that "your news can't be any more boring than ours", I don't know -- and it does pay off some percentage of the time. That alone is worth it....

It seems to me that people who carp on the great American tradition of the Christmas letter ought to keep in mind the difficulty of the task. Not only am I trying to capture an entire year (in this case, 4 person-years) in a space of 800 or so words, but I have to do it with an alphabet that has a letter missing. Or at least, it seems like everywhere I go, I keep hearing “Noel”!

Love, and puns, from our house to yours... <:-)~

Turn, Turn, Turn

Around our place, basically anything that has buttons or a display -- particularly any kind of digital readout -- is my responsibility. TV, VCR/DVD, clocks, computers, even to some extent the oven, all fall under my purview. After all, I am the Moderately-Well-Paid Information Technology Professional. I do my best to bear up under such a heavy load... although it's probably best that we don't talk about the first day of Daylight Savings Time back in 2000, AKA "Black Sunday".

The irony is that I am not the one in the house who owns a personal digital assistant. My wife, whose traditional brand of organizer has always been the patented "lots of scraps of paper" method, saw another minister using one at a meeting; when she got home, we got in the car and went out to buy one for her.

As enthusiastic about technology as I am in general, I haven't felt the lack of a PDA too intensely. I'm not exactly an Early Adopter by nature -- I even bought a VCR recently. However, I'm coming to the conclusion that I need something to help me keep track of one thing: whose turn it is.

It started simply enough, although I confess I don't recall what the first instance was. One day we went to do something and someone said, "He/she got to do it yesterday", so I said, "OK, today it's your turn." But I have a 7-year-old son who is obsessed with being first, and a 4-year-old daughter who is grimly determined that he won't get anything that she can't also have. In both cases, the wailing about the hideous fate of 'going second' is earsplitting; my son is especially fond of "Ohhhhh, I never get to do that!"

So at present, I am attempting to keep track -- using only the memory chips my Maker originally gave me -- of (at least!) whose turn it is to do the following:

• bring in the newspaper in the morning
• choose a group of 3 videos for potential viewing
• select the afternoon video from the group of 3 (this division of duties was itself devised to try to get around the 'my turn' thing, but succeeded only in creating an extra turn)
• choose his/her afternoon snack first
• open the door first
• get in/out of the van first
• take the first bath
• open our Advent calendar and retrieve the day's chocolate treat
• sit on a particular parent's lap during prayer time
• administer evening prayer time (each evening during prayer time one of the children gets to choose who goes next to offer their "thank you to Jesus")
• be put to bed by a particular parent

I actually thought about keeping track on our "fridge calendar" -- but there's literally not enough room to write it all in, unless I expand it to include the whole side of the fridge. I suppose the alternative is to designate each day as belonging to one kid or the other, but I'm not sure either of them can wait a whole day for their next turn! At least this way each child has something to hold onto each day. Or, you know, I can just ask them... to which the response is almost invariably "Me!"

Since a parent's job seems to involve a striped shirt and a whistle anyway, perhaps we should start each day (each activity?? Noooo!) with a coinflip: "Captains ready? Call it in the air..."

How long do you think it would be before, "Ohhhhh, I never get to be heads!"

Metablog: Better to Light a Single Candle

As far as I can tell, Hallmark does not carry a line of Happy Blog Anniversary cards -- nor, as far as I can tell, do the popular e-card sites. That is unquestionably why I have not received any greetings, salutations, or felicitations on the occasion of this, my First Blog Anniversary.

What's worse, a Google search on "blog anniversary" produced a bunch of very complimentary readers, congratulating their favorite blogger on his/her happy occasion. I didn't read them, but several of the search-text results included a line about 'I read you all the time' or 'I can't start my day without you'... which did kind of make me wonder the secret of their success.

No matter; I'm coming to terms with the concept that I'm writing this for me, and if anyone else pops in, I hope they enjoy it too. Living in a parsonage for most of my life, I'm acquainted with the need to be prepared for unexpected guests, so I've actually done a little bit of renovation that I'm showing off today in my Anniversary Open House (unfortunately, it's BYORefreshments -- but please, feel free to enjoy a refreshing beverage or tasty snack as you read. Just remember to use a coaster).

My host (or, I suppose, "landlord", to extend the metaphor), Blogger, has recently introduced some new features. The one I was eagerly anticipating was the "labels" feature, which allows me to categorize my posts. So I've been plowing through the Back Issues, trying to pigeonhole myself... not an easy task, since I really do take the "Random" part seriously! I also have a habit, more pronounced in some of the earlier efforts, of starting out in one direction but fetching up entirely somewhere else -- kind of like Edgar Allan Poe with multiple personalities and a touch of ADD.

Anyway, here's the list of my labels and what they mean:

1. A&E -- this is my Arts & Entertainment section. I write about books, music, TV or movies. For some reason, when I started out, I was sure the cyberworld was desperately awaiting my opinions on these things. I do it a lot less now, but I think my favorite was My Date With Donnie (Pt I-II)... although Sine Qua Noel is certainly more timely in this season.
2. Comics Page -- I had a hard time deciding what to call this one. It's a little embarrassing, or at least risky, to stand up and say This is funny about something you've written yourself. In any case, this is the place for things I wrote that I either intended at the time to be funny, or ended up sort of accidentally amusing. Not only does this label continue the "newspaper" metaphor I use in other labels, but I'm also secure in the knowledge that the "real" comics page is itself only sporadically funny (with the possible exception of Frazz) so I'm shooting at a makeable target. I think my favorite here is Not Quite the Fortress of Solitude; in general this category has the highest percentage of "not quite what I had in mind".
3. Day in the Life -- The largest group, entries based on something that's happened in my daily life. With any luck there is some overlap here with the previous category. I'm probably fondest of these myself and it's hard to pick one to recommend; if pressed, I'd probably go with Into the Rodent's Jaws or Christmas Performance Review.
4. Family Room -- Pieces in some way about my family. Like most parents I pull a fair amount of material out of the kids. I believe my pick here would be Lower Education.
5. Locker Room -- I thought when I started that I'd be writing pithy, amusing, insightful sports pieces pretty regularly. That was before I discovered that the people who do read this with any regularity are not generally sports fanatics... and that I don't have all that much pithy or amusing or insightful to say about sports. In any case, my fave is probably Not For Nothing Do They Say Hope "Springs"... although truthfully it's not all that much of a sports piece!
6. Metablog -- These pieces are blogs I write about writing blogs. I tried to write a piece about writing a piece about writing a piece once, but I blew a hole in the time/space continuum. I can already tell this entry will not be my favorite here; I'd say my top was The View from the 40s.
7. Op-Ed Page -- I started this to begin with in part because I had opinions on a couple things and no real place to put them; the alternative is to write the newspaper and become One Of Those Guys Who Writes to Newspapers. You know the type -- they type with one hand and use the other to hold onto the tinfoil hat that keeps out the thought rays the government is trying to poison them with. I don't do it too often -- even I'm not that interested in my opinion -- but the one I feel the most strongly about is Motivational Speech.
8. Rewind -- I think a lot about the past, whether mine specifically or simply in the historical sense. I don't write it that much, though, because I can't always see my own past, at least, from far enough away to make sense (or something interesting) of it for another reader. The one of these I enjoy the most is The Hazards of Time Travel.
9. Theology for Dummies -- is my somewhat tongue-in-cheek label for anything spiritual. It stems from my core belief that we are all theologians, whether we really "think about it" or not; everything you do is in some ways a reflection of who you believe God is and how (or if) you relate to Him. I'm not going to pick a favorite here -- some are "big" thoughts and some are "smaller", but I feel like they're all (I hope) truths that God has helped me see, so they're all important.

So that's the starting lineup. I'll add more categories if the need arises, and I may add more labels to some of the entries -- an entry can fit, and be assigned, several labels.

I have really enjoyed writing Year 1; I've taken great pleasure in the pure writing piece, and in thinking about my life and the world in new ways. I'm also appreciative of anyone who chooses to read it, even if they don't share a comment. But my pleasure, or satisfaction, shouldn't be (can't be, under the circumstances!) dependent on yours... so I'm going to keep going as long as I can, and see what else I learn.

Work Release

Some days, my commute to work can be pretty tough.

If one of the kids spills their milk, conditions can get slippery. And when there's a pileup -- of toys on the basement steps -- there can be significant delays in getting downstairs to my office.

I started working some of my hours from home almost 7 years ago, and for about half that time I've been a 100% remote employee. I vaguely remember those office days, but it's hard to imagine going back at this point. On the other hand, I may actually observe a stricter dress code for the most part than my last office -- I find that the more casually I dress, the dumber I am. I must say I particularly appreciate the "footwear-optional" policy at this location, however.

Obviously self-discipline can be an issue when you're all alone. If nothing else, the combination of no one watching, a little bit of stress, and unlimited access to snacks can be dangerous, if not lethal. The biggest challenge, however, is probably the isolation. I'm pretty solitary by nature... but even for me, there's a fine line between solitary work and solitary confinement.

That's why my occasional forays out of "the office" can feel a bit like being let out of jail (or at least like the prison work-release program). Taken to its extreme, I get to go to a meeting in Las Vegas; after all, the 7 people on my immediate team live in 6 different states, so that kind of extravagance is the only way we ever get to see each other.

Even my last "outing", although not reaching the Vegas standard, was a significant treat. Last week I drove about an hour to attend a class in Microsoft Excel (no, Bill doesn't get a link from me). I got to wear a shirt with a collar, and real shoes, and carry a briefcase. Just for one day I got to feel like a grownup... as opposed to a kid holed up in the basement playing video games or something.

Granted, the impartial observer might see it as a bit of a disappointment. I drove a long way, in the rain, to sit in a drafty meeting room with a mob of strangers (some of these strangers, judging from their inane and repetitive questions, had a difficult time finding their way home afterwards). The instructor was... well, not a natural teacher, with a decent but not awe-inspiring grasp of Excel. Though I was only four rows back, I couldn't see much of the work on the screen anyway; I could frankly sit down for an hour with the handout and get more out of it. Even my long-anticipated lunch out was just okay.

On the other hand, I just kept remembering it was my Grand Day Out -- and isn't it fortunate that I have such a relentlessly sunny outlook on life? After all, the next workday is back to the slippers, and back to the basement... at least as soon as the traffic clears on the stairs.