2018 Christmas Letter

a few of our stylish and talented family members, 

each more lovely than the other 

Dear Friends and Others to whom we want to brag about our outstanding

2018,

   

     As you well remember, this letter has become an annual ritual from our cozy seaside home in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, Florida.  Here we share activities, memorable quotations, anything we deem worthy and, boy howdy, are we full of worthy!  We begin:

Too many candidates are always running for election. Father  has a system all his own to pick one.  He is a graduate of E-bub's School of Feather Fluffing, so the family appreciates his wisdom. 

Miss Dental Flosser, the beauty queen, has crusty elbows and small feet. 

The olive oil turned rancid.

August 9th was on a Thursday.

Pink is a favorite color.

The librarian didn't do it.

Cousin Irk likes his toilet paper without splinters.

Mother got a new car and has doused it with perfume.  She feels they should give a discount for that dreadful new car smell.

A pillow is on the couch.

There are no spiders in the corner cupboard, but that can't be verified until Uncle Fug puts his hand in there.

Nasalin Fection warned she will never stay at a house with crooked tinsel.

It rained.  Then, it stopped.

Aunt Notsomuch said every hand should have five fingernails.  She can be most unreasonable.


"You got the wrong kind of pie."

Uncle Ree Moat had to quit his tree climbing job because he got his first pedicure and they sawed off his only means of getting up trunks.

Someone struck the middle C key on the piano.  The case is still under investigation.

The cat sniffed the celery a second time.

Mother buried some hair.

The TV tilts forward so the best seat in the house is on the floor. 

Seven and three is seventy-three.  Sister's detention is paying off.

There is more pepper than salt in the shakes.  Father is considering small claims court. 

Sister said her birthday present was hard to unwrap because it had too much tape on it. After a family meeting was called, a quorum of the group agreed to limit one roll of tape per gift. 

Someone should cut the grass.

Once again, we hope you all enjoyed our newsy letter.  Until next year, brush your teeth!

Hugs and Blisses

 from

 Amelia Island 

and

 May Good Times be Yours 
During the Holidays!
(and the rest of your days, too)

True Love Bites

     After I drafted this post, I thought how some might find the title deceptive.  No. I will not trash the concept of true love, this or any day.  After all, I write historical romantic suspense novels set in paradise, don't I?
     Rather, I mean to show the depth of love my husband, Bruce, has for me.  You see, after I slathered the last of the raspberry jelly on one slice of his morning toast, I opened a fresh store-bought jar of the same flavor.  That's when I compared labels.  One was full tilt, meaning lots of sugar added.  The other had no extra sugar added.  I was curious to see the difference in flavor between them.  Since there was no more in the one jar, the only way to taste them both was to take bites of Bruce's toast slices.  I went so far as to ask his permission, although he would have probably taken notice of the rounded chunks missing from each and inquired.  Well, with no hesitation, my sweet man granted my wish.  While I can't remember how much of a difference between the sugared and less-sugared jellies there was, I can and will always remember what I can only describe as an act of true love.
     I have to had that, as a child, my father used to let me spoon the juice aka yoke out of his fried eggs, often, on Saturday mornings.  He would eat the less than appetizing remains of the eggs, afterward.  
     You may tag me as spoiled rotten, but I prefer to see the true love in these generous acts. 
     I might add how Brucie will occasionally utter the phrase, "You know, I've never had a complete meal to myself in all our years of marriage."  Then he smiles at me.  

An Almost True Trivia Story

    Hubby Bruce and I went to a local restaurant and stayed for the weekly trivia game.  We’d heard about it and, heck, you can win free food.  Since we like their pizza, why not have an extra large, thin crust, double cheese with mushrooms on half and pepperoni and green pepper on the other half, on them?  Oh, may I mention we are pretty good at trivia?  It’s been a while since we’ve played Trivial Pursuit, a game from the 1980s, but when we did, we beat the socks off our kids. 

Once the rules were explained, mainly no cell phones allowed with which to google the answers and no shouting them out, we chose a name for our two-person team.  Being the well-educated sophisticates we are, we cleverly decided upon Team Malcolm.  (In case you don’t know, Malcolm is our last name.)

We began.  The first question: How many days are in a fortnight?  I jumped on that one, writing down the number 14.  Correct, of course.  Then I got one about the Joint Chiefs of Staff right and Bruce got Pulp Fiction. It went downhill, at lightning speed, from there. 

After ten minutes, we were doing so poorly that when they asked five questions about television theme songs from the '90s, I hollered, “We didn’t even own a TV back then!”  Not true, but I was hoping for a little sympathy at our wretched showing.  When none was forthcoming, we left at half-time having learned a couple of lessons.  #1.  Just because I beat a radio DJ out of a pizza twenty-one years ago by stumping him with Bruce’s question:  What was Li’l Abner’s legitimate day job?  Answer:  He was a mattress tester for the Stunned Ox Mattress Factory.  Yes, just because I won that one, doesn’t mean we know quite everything.  #2.  Never assign your real last name to your team because Amelia Island, Florida, where we live, is a small place and word of any humiliation spreads quickly.  Examples of such: So far this morning, the mailman asked me if I know what color the sky is and a store clerk asked how many toes are on a human being’s left foot.  While I’m pretty sure the sky is blue, I’m thinking the toe thing might be a trick question.  Is that with our without webs and do webbed toes count as one or two toes?  Hmm.  I’m still thinking this one over …

(Reprinted from 2014 and written by Jane Marie Malcolm because she found it and thought it was still cute. Remember, she's the funniest person she knows.)