Xmas Card 2020

Good Day. It Is Now Christmas Time. You’d be forgiven if you have absolutely no clue what day it is, where you are, or why you’re reading a Christmas card. Like us, you’ve probably been willing yourself into the closest thing to real time travel, aiming to come out sometime in mid-2021. But let’s throw the brakes on the time machine and give Christmas its due before we go back to wishing these days away.

As spring sprung this year, we loaded the land yacht for a pleasantly excessive thirteen consecutive weekends afield. Never has this family been more unified and wholeheartedly committed to a singular mission. We became a well-oiled machine: Leona grabbed the stuffies, Booker the bikes, Jo the nutritional provisions, and Ben the propane and ice cold pops. For thirty-six hours we hid out in the great wide open, perfectly content to let the world roll on without us for a while.

In the last several months, Leona has found her volume dial, and it goes way past eleven. Though she plays the role of Booker’s doting shadow, she has become fiercely independent and obscenely gifted at making the world laugh. She also knows what she wants. She wants a cat. Named snowflake. And she’s taken to asking Mom and Dad when they will die, so she can have one. Thankfully she’s yet to make any serious plans to expedite our end.

As for Booker, he is displaying skills that confirm his progression to the status of quintessential big kid: flipping his own flapjacks with aplomb, preferring dirt to asphalt beneath his bike, and reading aloud the peerless works of Shel Silverstein to his kid sister. He has also picked up a healthy casual swearing habit after a brief but intense love affair with the film Top Gun, which has made both of his parents irrationally proud.

We said adiós to Batman when he decided he had seen all he needed to see of this world, undoubtedly eager to kick some ass in the next. He spent his final months imparting his worldly wisdom and official blessing upon his protégé Kelly the Pirate, who has been honored to carry the mantle of free-spirited troublemaker. Meanwhile Yawgoo, assuming she’d retired from tomfoolery forever, is attempting to rediscover her playful side. Like a septuagenarian returning to the workforce after a pension snafu, she’s looked utterly bewildered and disgruntled, but she’s being a sport.

If the standard misfortunes of regular living the last few years didn’t give us enough perspective on what truly matters, it’s safe to say this was the year that delivered the final calibration of our priorities. We’re also about ready at this point to tell the Universe that we’re all set on the life-altering lessons for a bit. But if it doesn’t listen, we’ll be ready.

Happy Christmas Dear Friends, Love – Ben, Jo, Booker, Leona, Yawgoo, Kelly the Pirate & Sharky/Frank II