Our Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas from the house of Elle. I hope this finds you alive and well, or at least sober. If not sober, you best be on your way to getting your drunk on. If not, you certainly will want to be by the end of this.

The year has been mostly good to us. Neither of us were arrested although it is a distinct possibility that one of my blog readers called CPS on us. Man, you mention one time that you leave your child alone with open beer cans and people get all uppity. It’s not like we left knives out for him to play with. He has to wait until he’s four for that.

In January the boy had a little bit of a Russian flashback. We had a week straight of snow and ice. It was great entertainment for us. We threw the boy out in the snow (in his snow suit) and let him have at it while we watched out the window and sipped hot buttered rum. What? Don’t worry we gave him his when he got cold and came inside. Gah!

The spring found Elle down with the plague. She did her best to spread it around to as many people as possible, but unfortunately it only killed off smart people instead of the originally targeted dumb of the world . Derek stepped in and played a bit of Mr. Mom. I believe the boy spent 3 days feeding on chips and boxed macaroni and cheese.

In June the family of Elle took their first family vacation. We traveled to beautiful and tropical Anchorage, Alaska. Mmm, you should have seen Elle’s tan. A glamorous shade of pasty. While there we had the opportunity to meet Rhonda and Brian and their lovely children. This illustrated the point that Elle and Rhonda do share a brain. We chatted, we drank a little some a lot of beer and shoved all of the children into a box. Good times. Unfortunately they escaped and are currently plotting to take their revenge upon us.

Summer also found Elle seeking help for her continuing crazy. This time in the form of oriental medicine. She regularly gets stuck with little needles and is forced to drink nasty ass tea. The good news is she throws things at the other members of the family and tries to sell the child on Ebay much less frequently. They finally reinstated her account in November.

In August Derek drug dragged the rest of us to California for yet another “vacation.” This time he got to whoop it up in San Fran with his buddies while Elle and the boy stayed in Sacramento with the trusty sis-in-law. However it was decided by all that God must hate California and punishes them by making it hot as hell.

Upon the return from the great California adventure we shipped the boy off to school. Within a week the child had mastered all that preschool had to offer and ran off all the other children. (We believe there may have been a “plot” to overthrow the teachers and staff too, to create his own special kingdom… but he’s not talking) He now attends two days a week in a class with only two other children, both girls. At home we are working on pick-up lines such as, “is this naughty chair taken?” and “hey baby, can I buy you juice box?” But for the time being he’s into much older women, professing his love for photographer, Willow. She now spends her free time humming to the tune of “Don’t You Wish Your Girlfriend was Hott Like Me.” I believe his affection has gone to her head.

In October we upgraded to the toddler 3.0 model. It was over-hyped and amounted to little substance, you know, like Vista. As of this letter we are still working out the bugs and hoping that service pack 1 arrives soon. For the most part we just shove him back in the box and refer to the manual. Sadly, the manual is providing no help and neither is the help desk. We are afraid we are going to have to ship him off to the genius bar for a reboot.

In November we sold an over abundance of chocolate and gained a good 300 pounds a piece. We are hoping for a weight watchers group discount. If that doesn’t pan out we are looking into starting a meth lab in the back shed. Nothin’ like a little meth to speed up the ol’ metabolism.

We look forward to a Christmas full of family, friends and fun. The warden has allowed us extra visits with Grandma and Dad is released on parole right before New Years. We’ll have to hide the guns and fine china, but it should be a pretty low key New Years celebration.

We wish you all a very Happy Holidays and may the nurses in the ER be nice as they pump your stomach.

Elle, the trusty husband and the boy.