Well, it’s hard for the Thompson Family to believe that another year has gone by here on McCormick Street – a year of crushing debt, personal humiliation, unexplained odors and those strange mewling sounds that come from all of our electrical outlets. It’s especially hard for Frank to believe, since he has recently become convinced that there are two additional months in the calendar – Dennistember and Lollapatober.
I guess the biggest event around here is that we’ve been remodeling our house. With a budget that would barely fund the Iraq War, we have installed three new steam rooms – one for Frank, one for Claire and one for the Shu Mai. And, with an eye toward increasing our home’s resale value, we have added on a crematorium, an abattoir, an infectious diseases ward and a new TV room and kitchen. We admit to a few missteps in the latter two. Misunderstanding the term “plasma TV,” we actually ordered a screen made of blood. And we’ll be the first to admit – well, outside of the fire department – that installing an oven made entirely of teak, however lovely, was just bad planning. But all this might be moot since Claire misinterpreted the term “house flipping” with tragic results.

Speaking of Claire, we know that many of our friends were concerned when she was fitted with her prosthetic leg last July, especially since her two actual legs function perfectly. The new one was installed in the small of her back so now she can just lean back and rest anywhere. Possibly because this is so energizing for her, Claire has become far more sociable over the last year. Nearly every week she invites friends over for dinner. They seldom return, however, since, instead of feeding them, she just tends to do a silly dance all evening until they leave.

Frank has been battling his own personal demons, as well as a couple he doesn’t recognize. For a six week period in the fall he was afraid to go into his own bathroom for fear that badgers were napping in his bidet. At about the same time, he started getting real introspective, wondering if in a past life he was exactly the same person, only in older clothes.

But despite his personal troubles, Frank has tried to remain productive. He has spent the better part of six months writing a screenplay entitled “Hitler’s Supply Closet.” It’s a searing drama about the problems facing a woman who is torn between the man she loves, and a large canker on her lip that talks to her, and suggests that she act immodestly in public. You might be interested to know that “Hitler’s Supply Closet” was based on a true story. Except in real life it was a lemur, not a woman, and it had a broken leg not a canker and, at any rate, the broken leg didn’t tell the lemur to do anything and the lemur wouldn’t have understood it if it had, because lemurs are notoriously difficult to communicate with. Otherwise, completely true.

Our oldest daughter Jonathan has let school and her social life fall by the wayside while devoting herself full time to getting the Ripley’s Believe It or Not people interested in her Wondrous Bathtub That Will Never Fill. We have repeatedly pointed out to her that there’s no stopper but that just seems to sink her deeper into melancholy.

The Twins, who normally stick together like used Kleenex, have actually had separate concerns this year. This is encouraging for us, since up to now they’ve been completely indistinguishable, even wearing the same clothes. At the same time.

Merry Anthony, the Revered Wit of Tarrytown (he’s the tall blond one) spends most of his spare time naming every egg in the carton. We’ve tried to discourage this, since he becomes bereft each time we make an omelet. But I guess that shows what a big heart he has. The MRI showed that, as well.

Diddly (the short Asian one) became a concern to us when we began to notice that he pees every time he sneezes. We were reassured, though, when we learned that this was not a medical condition, but just something he enjoys.

So, as we come to the end of a year filled with horror, dread, cataclysm, blight and agony, we cast our eyes to the new year, which promises to be even worse. In other words,

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYBODY!