Xmas Letter 2024

A bunch of people I don’t like have been asking me to write a year-end letter (on the other hand, several people I do like haven’t said a word).

You’d think there is a lot to catch up on, and maybe there is, but who can remember all of those things? I asked my wife for some highlights and she fed me a steady stream of saccharine laced nonsense. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I know the last time I started one of these she wanted me to mention her goldfish Garfield. Mentioned. Also (spoiler warning), dead now.

So, I asked Reilly for a little help jogging the memory. She was more helpful than Bernadette but still nothing great. In desperation I turned to Nathan and Nick for help. Completely useless. 28 years and I still don’t know what the point of having children is. They like to argue over who my favorite is, maybe they should ask who the least favorite is. *Reilly phantom edit: the bastard is lying, I helped* 

One of the first things I did in starting this was a quick review of some prior letters to get the writing juices flowing (aka, find some ideas to steal). In the last one I mentioned Nathan had really embraced working a job and that he was often trying to pick up a shift. I must have written that during a very specific 2-week window because that is definitely the last time anyone would say that combination of words. I also noticed I said the exact same thing in consecutive letters. First, shame on me (counterpoint: see note above about stealing ideas). I’m pretty sure I know how that happened and I can’t promise the same thing won’t happen this time around.

A common theme in prior letters is bitching about not being able to just leave the Christmas lights up all year, which is still true. The good news is Bernadette ordered some LED light strips that she said we could leave up all year. Hell yeah! The bad news is you need special splicers to combine multiple strips and I couldn’t find any locally when the weather was nice enough for hanging lights. Back to the regular ones. The X-Mas light Gods truly hate me.

I suppose it’s time to get on to some noteworthy things that have happened. So, time to speed-run the last….8 years?! Fuuuuuck.

2017 and 2018 might be too far gone. I’m going to write some filler words here that create the illusion of content with some intention of coming back and replacing it with something meaningful (this is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had). Despite his best efforts Nathan graduated from high school.

Pauline was handy as
an emergency table

In 2019 we had finally rid ourselves of two kids. For some unholy reason Bernadette decided we need to fill that void. Smash cut to us signing up to host a foreign exchange student. I was on the brink of being able to get turned down for sex at almost any hour of the day. Instead, Pauline came from Belgium to live with us for the school year (in 2023 she came back with her sister and parents who are wonderful people, maybe I can convince them to adopt me). I’m sure some other stuff happened and I imagine I’ll be reminded of it after this goes out.

2020 (colorized)

It goes without saying, but 2020 was one hell of a year and a weird vortex-time-suck where everything before it was eons ago. Nick started a youtube channel. My subscription means he’s only a few million subscribers away from being a youtube star. The fundemic also forced us into a homeschool situation with Nick which we ended up doing for all of middle school for some reason. It wasn’t all bad, but I sure didn’t enjoy it. We were worried about his return to high school but he came home and said “the day is much longer, but we do a whole lot less work”. Fair enough, I’m just happy to not be the teacher. Bernadette picked up hiking as a hobby, which is obviously awesome for anyone reading this, but it was less awesome for the schmuck married to her who also “picked up hiking” (actually I quite enjoy hiking once I’m there, it’s just the thought of it while sitting on my couch isn’t so appealing).

In 2022 Nick decided he was done with soccer so he needed a new extracurricular activity. We basically forced him to try taekwondo (only because he wouldn’t choose something himself) which turned out to be a great choice as he quickly developed a passion for it. I almost never had to remind him it was time to go. In fact, he usually came to me saying it was time to go (almost to the point of me being the whiny bitch about practice). By the time you read this letter he will probably have taken his black belt test. The other noteworthy thing here is Bernadette started making memory bears, and she’s pretty good at it. If I die feel free to request a t-shirt bear.  

In 2023 Nathan got married to Carissa. It’s kind of wild he found someone willing to put up with him. I jest (somewhat). He’s abrasive and stinks, but he’s also all bark no bite and when it comes down to it he’s a softie with a big heart (that said, we like his wife better than him). At the same time, as a gesture of kindness to me, Reilly moved to Arizona with her boyfriend Jared.

When Reilly is your aunt
and Nathan is your uncle

We finally made it to the current year. A few things of note happened in 2024. Nathan and Carissa had a baby girl (Blakely) making us grandparents. Because there’s no way Reilly is going to let Nathan have the spotlight she also pumped out a baby (Vincent) making us two-time back-to-back undefeated grandparents. Even though the status of grandparent means you’re old, it comes with some benefits. In particular, you get to enjoy all the fun parts of babies while being able to hand them back when various conditions are met (crying or pooping are auto hand-back cases). At this point the babies are too young for me to complain about being unhelpful. But at the same time, they’re completely useless. They’ll only get by being cute for so long, they’ve been warned.

I’m not sure what I did to piss Reilly off but she also moved back home this year. Of course, that involved my dumb ass flying to Arizona to help load the moving truck and drive her car back. At least on this trip I wasn’t accidentally taking horse tranquilizing antihistamines that turned me into a zombie (something that happened a month earlier when we went to meet baby Vin).

Definitely got that rizz

Nick turned 16 and got his driver’s license. I told him that means he’s got skibidi sigma rizz. He didn’t seem too happy and scoffed. Seems sussy Ohio.

Bernadette tried to take an Alaskan cruise for the second time and failed for the second time. The first was cancelled due to covid, this one was cancelled because the boat broke down. Either the trip is cursed and the universe is telling her to stop trying to go to Alaska, or she is just  not good at cruises.

This is getting a little long in the tooth and I’m starting to just list things without any transitions. In other words, if I keep at it this will turn into a run of the mill steaming pile of shit letter, if it hasn’t already. So with that, I’m done.

Who the fuck does
she think she is?

Goofy Goobers