Christmas Letter 2015

1

December 2015

Dear Friends and Family: This is going to be the greatest Christmas letter all year. It’s going to be terrific! Amazing. Don’t waste your time on

those low-energy letters. I’m going to make Christmas letters great again. Not that there is anything wrong with other letters, except for the hideous faces of the writers. All trumping aside, this year was not without its challenges. In order to protect the guilty, I won’t go into detail but I learned that with deep lows come great highs. For every valley, there is a mountain. For every yin, there is a yang. For every Chipotle, there is a Qdoba. The highlight this year was Lily graduating from Roosevelt High School and beginning the next stage of her journey, matriculating at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Pratt is not the school of Welcome Back Kotter fame, also a Brooklyn institution, but the school of Robert Redford, Robert Mapplethorpe, Terrance Howard and the artist who designed the famous Ghostbusters logo. They also had one of the coolest logos of any college.

However, this being an art school, they had to soften things up a bit, and recently changed to this:

Yes, instead of a juiced-up pirate that looks like he could kill you with just his stare, they went to Garfield in a colonial costume. It even appears he is about to light his jacket on fire. Anyway, they have a very good fashion design program and Lily is in the heart of the fashion world, just a subway ride from the Garment District and the most egomaniacal people in America. No I’m not referring to Donald Trump, but rather the divas in the fashion industry (Have you seen “The Devil Wears Prada?”). We had a nice trip to New York to drop her off although there was a swamp-butt alert the entire time as the temperature never dropped below 90. And you have to love New Yorkers. We were literally nearly ripped off the minute we got off the plane when the “cabbie” turned out to be a town car with no meter. He thought he had me until I called the hotel and asked them the fare from the airport. I then threatened to call the cab commission. I may be a hayseed from Iowa but I have just enough Italian blood in me that I can sniff out a scam. Lily, or actually she is going by her proper name Liliana these days, is adjusting well to college and the big city. She immediately did an un-Lily move by joining a sorority in her first week. All I know about the Greek system is Lambda

2

Lambda Lambda from Revenge of the Nerds. She is now a Tri Sig, but I must add that a sorority in NYC is a little different than in other parts of the country. First,

there is no house (how could they afford one in that city?). Also, it is an art school, so the chapter is quite diverse in terms of personalities and interests. She made all of her “sisters” envious and the Little Old ladies from What Cheer (pop 630) hearts’ aflutter when she met

Ansel Elgort. Who, you ask? I never heard of him either (Generation X, Google him). Apparently, he’s a big deal with the Millennials and Lily insists he is her future husband (she offered this photo as proof). Justin is too young to remember the early days of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady so you can only imagine how excited he was to witness the Patriots cheat, I mean win their way through the playoffs and become Super

Bowl Champions when Russell Wilson threw a completely inflated football right into the hands of Malcolm Butler. It was so thrilling that Justin hugged Christine for the first time in 5 years. She’s hoping for another Patriots win this season so she can get another hug or at least settle for an “I love the Patriots! Oh and you too, Mom. But, I really love the Patriots!” Justin had his first job where he received a W-2 (he’s been paid under the table for years by Grandpa for dusting his truck collection, helping with the garden and moving heavy furniture). He worked for Capital City Fruit in the break case area and could assemble boxes faster than a UPS worker after downing a gallon of 5-Hour Energy. He tried out his Spanish on a few of his co-workers, which I think confused them when Justin mistakenly asked “is the bathroom right or left-handed?” Christine now has more pairs of shoes than Imelda Marcos (for you Millennials, Google her) thanks to her job at Fleet Feet Sports. After

winning 15 straight over 2 years, she did lose her first age group 5k in April but went undefeated the rest of 2015. It turns out the winner of the April race heard about this middle-aged sensation in the nation (or at least the Heartland) and flew in from Virginia just to beat Christine and even has her own Wikipedia page. I always say, if you are going to lose an amateur 5k, do so to a runner with her own Wiki leaks.

Danny, who now refers to himself as a recovering Physics major, auditioned for the vocal music program and was accepted. The only drawback is he now will have to go an extra semester (cha-ching), but he also gets private lessons from Simon Estes (Millennials, Google him), who is on faculty with the Iowa State Music Department. He was joined in Ames by his girlfriend, Liza, who enthusiastically entertained our creepy notion that she pretend to be Lily when she stayed at our house for Thanksgiving. The Dan Van hit its final days and we parted ways after 11 years. Danny, however, figuring Lily was off to NYC and

Justin did not have his license yet, stole Rhonda the Honda in the dead of night and took it up to Ames with him. I told him he is now responsible for all maintenance so he is happier than J.J. Abrams (Baby Boomers, Google him) counting his Star Wars money now that gas is under $2.00 per gallon. I spent much of the year cursing the idiots in front of me who wait to finish their text messages instead of moving when the light turns green. I despise them almost as much as the morons who insist on driving in the passing lane at the exact speed as the drivers in the right lane. And then there is the guy with the license plate that says “WW II.” I know I’ll be late for work when he is in front of me. Look, I appreciate his service, I really do, but when you are that old and still driving, your accelerator is getting no love. When I’m not going insane with road rage, I’ve been working on a new food for vegetarians called Hamburger Hinderer. We’re going straight for those Hamburger Helper carnivores. I’m also lobbying for a travel ban for people coming into the country from Madagascar. Anyone that willingly lives with tarantulas as big as Kim Kardashian’s butt cannot be trusted.

3

In April, a strange guy appeared in my office and said he wanted to

bring a group in for a tour. However, he declined to say who he was representing and was very coy, so I kicked him out. Turns out, he was working for Hillary Clinton and they called later that day to see if she could stop by our facility

on her first tour to Iowa of the 2016 campaign. I told them we were too busy. They suggested I might want to reconsider and I did kind of want to see what a pantsuit looks

like up close so we changed our minds and allowed her to visit. Fortunately, my frivolities in the 80’s did not prevent me from passing the Secret Service background check and I gave her a quick tour followed by a business roundtable in front of press from all over the world. However, I was disappointed the brilliant reporters from the Daily Show and The Onion did not cover this pivotal event. But, enough about Hillary. She’s horrible and I’m terrific and I will be the greatest writer of inane Christmas letters that has ever lived. It will be even more amazing than those Islamic Christmas letters. And 2016 is going to terrific, just terrific! God bless everyone and Happy Holidays! Brendan, Christine, Danny, Lily, and Justin