Happy Holidays 2010

Warmest wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season to you and your’n! Please allow me to quickly brief y’alls as to the nature of this year’s Christmas letter. As many of you know, I have been trying (for years now) to construct a mighty literary edifice, one that will finally announce to the world the undeniable genius and skill, the ultimate embodiment of the craft, the pure unadulterated horse-sense of... me! Unfortunately, this year’s attempt contains no perceptible improvement over my previous years’ offerings. In fact, it might be even worse. I am sorry to say that, at only two stories off the ground, it was red-flagged and shut down by the journalism foremen, citing a lack of structural integrity at even the most fundamental levels. A review of the blueprints resulted in much eye-rolling, shaking of heads and general moaning and groaning. The consensus is this: my designs are so ill-conceived that it is almost as if I have no formal literary foundation whatsoever from which to draw upon and that even at only two stories high, my eloquent vision is naught but a house of cards. Now, with time running out, the thought of a complete re-build is out of the question. And so it is with darting eyes and a weaselly little half-smile that I give you perhaps one of the most ludicrous stories ever written. I apologize for ruining many a family’s cherished fireside tradition--the reading aloud of my Christmas Chronicle. It is, alas, impossible.
At this time, I am also sorry to announce that since I simply cannot foresee any way that these shoddy, jerry-built offerings will make any marked improvement in the future, I am considering an early retirement from all written story-telling. Instead, I hope to pursue my lifelong dream of ventriloquism. That way, at least, the lunacy of my dialogues can be blamed on the freakin’ puppet. I also hope to grow some organic oats someday.