First of all, we must apologize for sending out our Holiday Greetings so late in the season. We know that many of our friends like a little lead time so they can have completely purged it from their memories by the time Christmas Day arrives. But as you may recall, our St. Swithun’s Day newsletter from last July caused such a firestorm of controversy, and fire, that we have been understandably reluctant to return to the warm glow of the laptop to chronicle our perplexing trek through 2009. But knowing that confused outrage is the gift our friends expect of us, we have persevered.

It is our custom that the one who types this newsletter gets to be the first family member discussed. This year, because he is temporarily the only family member with full use of both thumbs, this falls to Frank and so we shall begin with him.

Frank has been working diligently on weight loss. He lost fifty pounds, then gained it back, then lost it again, then gained it back, and so on. Time lapse photography of him during this period makes Frank resemble one of those balloons on an oxygen pump. One doctor suggested weight-loss surgery. To be specific, he told Frank that if his legs were removed it would result in an immediate loss of some one third of his total mass. Frank, having recently purchased new shoes, decided against it.

All this was precipitated, unless that means rained, when Frank’s doctor informed him that Frank’s blood sugar was roughly twice as high as that of a marshmallow chick; this was traced back to Frank’s diet which has consisted entirely of divinity fudge since 1982. Now he has chosen a healthier path, eating only organic fudge and swapping out at least one helping per day for a plate of steamed kelp. On special occasions, he enjoys a serving of fugu, carelessly prepared by Claire, who dreams of a major insurance payout.
Speaking of Claire, she has continued to work wonders with her charity benefitting children whose hands have palmal aspects but not dorsal. She spends hours in therapy with these unfortunate tots, teaching them to concentrate on the things that they are especially suited for, such as slapping. The work is low-paying, painful, demeaning, insulting, filthy and the hours are brutally long. But it is warmly rewarding in all other ways.

Claire has also had an eventful year regarding cars, having been involved in more accidents than were depicted in “The Blues Brothers.” Our insurance company has seen fit to raise our rates so steadily and substantially that sometimes agents call our house simply to thank us and weep. And Claire has destroyed so many rental cars that our local dealer has added a new option called “The Claire” which offers the renter a bonus if he’s able to total the car before even driving it off the lot.

People keep asking after our triplets and we have to patiently and repeatedly explain that they’re actually twins but that one of them has too many ears, which creates a kind of optical illusion.

First, we’re disappointed to report that neither one has had anything to do with head cheese all year long. Their avoidance was so complete than even when they spent six weeks in Austria, attending the Body Odor Conference, they refused even to try the presswurst. This was a huge disappointment to us, since head cheese is the one reference we can always count on and we feel rather lost without it. Now, how are we to make an aspic joke? How, we ask you.

Typically, for they have the keen sense of direction of a pair of paint cans, the twins got rather lost returning from Austria. They ended up in a small hamlet in Serbia where they were soon lionized for their pungency, for it is a country that appreciates stench. Adele Romaine de la Hura (the older, taller one), was so moved by the experience that she composed an opera called “The Whiff of Truth.” Antoine Gilliat von Blurstein (the younger, even taller one) fervently desired to play the lead in this opera, even though an irregularity of his vocal cords make his singing voice sound much like a duck choking on a petit four. Nonetheless, he was so angered that his twin would not give him the role that he threatened to hold his breath until he turned even bluer than usual. This experience was an eye-opener for him, since it revealed that almost everyone he has ever come in contact with has always been holding his or her breath, but for vastly different reasons, as those of you who know the twins can easily guess.

Our middle girl, Pokey Joe (named after Claire’s brother Armstrong), has been working hard on her new invention, a device to introduce veins back into shrimp. Of course, PJ has always been an innovator. You may remember two years ago when she invented Fritter, a method of communicating instantly using only fried dough.

Always the gourmand, PJ has been doing many other interesting things with food, creating such culinary masterworks as Bavarian Cream Conches, Lightly Whipped Whelp, and, our favorite, Mollusk Clafouti. We have enjoyed many adventurous meals courtesy of PJ and have become closer than we ever dreamed with most of our local ER staff.

But even though these three kids have figured in our lives to some extent or other this year, we’ve mostly left them to fend for themselves, devoting most of our attention to our oldest son Camille. And we’ll tell you why:
Some months ago, Camille made the surprising announcement that he intended to become a fashion designer, despite the fact that he spent his first thirteen years refusing to wear anything but suet. Still, we like to encourage his pursuits (even during that trying period when his twin obsessions were stuffing mattresses with road kill and arson), so, in the spirit of the season, we allowed him to create new Christmas outfits for the whole family.

For Claire he devised a jerkin made of qiviut fiber, which of course is made from the hair of the musk ox, of which Camille owns several, all hairless. Over this, Claire wears a kameez with smocking of what we hope is seaweed and a Peter Pan collar which Camille devised entirely from peanut butter. The whole thing looks smashing, especially when Claire dons her special wimple which she always wears at a rakish angle because it’s made of freshly mined kaolin, weighs some forty pounds and leaves chalky residue on her forehead.

For Frank, he made a manteau with matching gaskin, complete with amusing flocking in each armscye. For head-gear, Camille has created a tarboosh which is both insouciant and malodorous. The color of the entire ensemble, according to Camille, is gamboge, although Frank contends that it’s actually celadon which is, tellingly enough, the color of Camille’s teeth.

All the rest of the kids are adorned in dirndls, ocher in color, over which they wear roquelaures made of jute. On their abnormally small heads, they wear perukes which Camille has somehow programmed to remain perpetually at 22 degrees Kelvin. Regulating a peruke at a frigid level is ingenious on one level but seems abnormally cruel to the kids, all of whom have warmth issues because of having been born without epidermis. But we don’t like to criticize Camille. He’s sensitive. And vengeful.

We began 2009 with a gnawing sense of apprehension, exacerbated by our crushing poverty, antagonistic grocery baggers, infestation of voles and the deep slant in our home’s foundation which made the house resemble a super slide. And we end the year with the grim satisfaction of knowing that things turned out even worse than we feared. So we begin 2010 with the misplaced and almost certainly inaccurate conviction that things can’t possibly get any worse.

But in our heart of hearts, we know that they can. So from all of us, except Camille, to all of you, we offer a bitterly ironic HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The Thompsons