So I was thinking I was at the end of my Christmas Card receiving as I (in my slacker way) had even sent mine out right at December 31st (anything later from laziness is just considered tacky) and most of mine have found their way to their unsuspecting targets.

Mom greets me at the door with yet another slew of Christmas card love when I went to sponge food off of them the other nite (I hadn't been there in a while and had amassed some cards). Usually I get the cards that mimic my old high school year book when I had no friends ("Happy Holidays" usually equals "Have a nice summer" and "Stay sweet" in year book terms). Let me interject that there is nothing wrong with those cards - and I myself have sent them out. The fact that you put a stamp on something and sent it out via the USPS speaks oodles of love right there. The last time I put a stamp on something besides sending out senseless holiday cheer was a bill of some sort - I am sure you can relate.

Anyway, there is this other type of card that my family gets from a particular family (the Smiths) every year. Our last and only visit with them when I was seven and we got stuck on their "Our Family Kicks Your Family's Ass in Corporate Goals and Accepted Norms" Christmas card list. This breaks down to where they give us a cookie cutter "dear friends" letter about all the cures for cancer the parents have discovered, what new degrees that their kids are getting in college, and that their dog has better dog treats then our dog. I am sure you have a name for these when you get them in your mailbox. Mine does too - but I won't say them here.

At first, these letters were kick in the pants. The last thing my mom, who desperately craves her family to be like a Norman Rockwell painting, wants to hear is that while her out of work husband tried desperately to find work that year - is that this other family is experiencing a large Christmas bonus and two raises that year. It doesn't help that while I was on my third try of trying to find the right medication (one of ten in my lifetime) that doesn't make me loopy or suicidal and getting kicked out of yet another school, that their children were on the deans list and had their careers and life cut out for them. Our dog was even retarded compared to their dog. Whatever cool thing that happened that year to us (in Griswold family fashion) was quickly overshadowed by their family trip that went off without a hitch.

And then something changed. We started to anticipate these letters and read between the lines. When the other family's husband decided to "go a different route" and start a slow but promising business we would high five each other and realized that meant "being canned from his job" and start a failing small business since no one else would hire him. When their children were "unsure of what job to take" and decided that they would all move back in with mom and dad to figure out what choices in life were right for them - we saw "cost of living was too high for a rain forest specialist living in New York and guidance counselor" and it was time to mooch off of mom and dad. We had already been in their shoes and while we weren't exactly kicking their ass - we knew we were gaining in the lead of superiority. Mom was no longer frowning when their letter graced our mailbox.

We started making an event out of it. Mom would serve appetizers and wine while we dissected their letter. We would giggle insanely when the husband would realize that yet another dabbling into a "sure money maker" business as an abstract musician was going nowhere. And that their kids tried to live together in a one bedroom apartment in the hood but had to move back in with Mommy and Daddy. Their mother had even moved in with them as they needed to sponge off her social security. Even their dog had died at this point - while ours was still alive yet blind, overweight and should have been dead years ago. We almost felt sorry for them. ALMOST.

And then this Christmas - the letter didn't come. We were counting on that letter to up our confidence levels to new heights this holiday season and we were let down. I guess their year could no longer be masked by inventive new ambiguous terms and it would have been just them telling us that their lives have sunk to new lows and would we please donate to their pay pal account so their house wouldn't be repossessed. I guess, in a sense, our dysfunctional family stood the test of time and theirs crumbled at the first sign of trouble. Mom reigns victorious in our weird, but definitely more tight-knit family.

And then, "I" got one of those dreaded letters. It was a first for me and a first for this girl who I thought was my friend. We used to hang out at cons together and get plowed and flirt with men. This was a girl that would put on makeup at 8pm and without any touchups would still look amazing at 3am. She taught me everything I knew on being fabulous. She was my con staple pal that I HAD to hang with at every convention and she left the scene as soon as she got married five years ago. I never heard from her again after that until this letter. At least she had the decency to change it to "Dear Dawn" in a different font than the rest of the letter to imply that it was just to me and not to several hundred people in a database.

My mother was sympathetic to what had transpired. I was at the beginning of her "more fabulous than your lifestyle will ever be" tirade of letters and it would take years before I would feel like I was beating her at the game of life. Mom told me that we wore down the Smiths since their onslaught of all those "better than you" Christmas cards and look who is "better than them"now. I smiled but that didn't help any. It took us 15 years to feel better about those letters. And I don't know if I have the energy to start over by myself trying to read the despair in an obviously non troubled and happy letter. Maybe next year Mom will help me out and read it to me while I attempt to find the depressive angle in her note.

Then this past Monday - I got yet another "your life sucks - don't you wish you were us" letter -and I laughed my ass off. I gave it to mom and dad to read and Dad wished he would have thought of it first. It made fun of every letter that we ever got from the Smiths with outrageous claims and lies. You knew it was fake. I hope I stay on their Christmas Card list for a long long time. After reading my letter from Fabulous Married Girl, it sure picked up my spirits to know that this letter found its way to not only my house who would appreciate such a joke - but to others who know they are guilty of their parody.