Dear Friends and Family,

Well, well, well.  If it isn’t 2020.    

I delight in the absurd when it comes to the art of the Christmas letter. I feel this is what makes them interesting in the first place. I’m very much in favor of having a good story to tell. So much, that when something really ridiculous happens to me during the year – I give myself a little high five and make a mental note of it. Super happy for you about your Honors Student and your lovely vacation, but have you had a girdle forcibly removed by paramedics? Have you been cut out of one, like an off-brand tube of Pillsbury biscuits? Because I have (Holiday 2017). And when it comes to the art of the Christmas letter – Pillsbury biscuit trumps Honor Student. I win. Those are the rules.

Bizarre events are Christmas letter currency. As such, you would think that 2020 gave me a decade’s worth of ammunition. It was a goldmine, right? A veritable masterpiece. The problem with it, though, is that this year has been so consistently absurd. The things that happened to me also happened to you. They cancel each other out. Render each other unusable.

For instance, my grocery store was transformed into a life-sized version of Candyland with colored dots and directional arrows. I found myself moving very slowly on this winding path to Candy Cane Village only to realize I’d forgotten to pick up mayo and now had to go back to the beginning and start over. It’s funny – but your grocery store did this as well. Now – I DID level up by starting to wear costumes for this. I raised their Candyland by dressing as an actual game piece. Hah! I did this for 7 weeks which gained me some notoriety at the Publix.

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The grocery store did make me realize that I actually like wearing masks. I feel less conspicuous (even dressed as a bee). I also have grown into my ability to mouth things at people in a very stealth manner. My eyes may be saying “please take your time, madam, for I am a friendly person who has all the time in the world” while my lips are saying “ for the LOVE OF &^%* LADY THEY ARE JUST %$*# EGGS!” But we have all discovered this magical ability, have we not? It cancels out.

I had plans, people. I had plans for this year. I purchased a lovely, lovely planner. I made goals for myself. I mean real goals – not “learn to Twitter” like now. I was actually waiting to be called up to Flight Attendant training in Las Vegas. I’d made it through all the interviews and the airline was like – hold please, we will just be calling everyone from your base up together. Our children were grown, our youngest had just moved out, it seemed like perfect timing for me. I was planning to kill this training – then commence my glamorous life of one-ups to Des Moines Iowa, right? “I’m sorry, really going to need you to raise your seatback. Mmm hmm, thanks so much.” I was ready to DO THIS. Right? And you all know what happened next because it happened to all of us.

Husband and I have been married for 25 years. We’ve spent a lot of time together. I mean, he HAD been traveling for work for the past 10 years. I was used to him being here and being gone. Most people go to work. We both went to work. It’s just when he went to work he would be gone for a few days. Well. he and I have been together, pretty much 24/7 for 267 days now (who’s counting). Just the two of us!

We’ve become two 50-year-olds trying to trick each other into opening the dishwasher first after it runs.  (House rules mandate you are now obligated to unload it.)  We take turns cooking.   We re-visited the foods we ate when we were newly married.  (Hamburger Helper is not as magical as we remembered.)  Then we each went through our favorite meals as kids (creamed chipped beef anyone?) followed by our favorite school lunches (the midwest afectation of chili, cheese stick and cinnamon roll.)    I would not try husbands canned pear with mayonnaise and a sprinkle of cheese. For the record.

He made a home office in what was formerly daughters bedroom (history of this bedroom includes this guy named John who choked to death on a hamburger in there in the middle of the night. We still get mail for him.) So husband walks to work. Then, like Mr. Rodgers, he slips on a dress shirt and tie from his office closet. At first, it was ridiculous to see this “business on the top” ensemble with the rest of him wearing khaki shorts and flip flops, but it’s just his regular look at this point.

He starts each day with a cannonball into the pool.  When husband made this commitment to “Cannonballs Against Covid” it was under the assumption the pandemic would last 4-5 weeks.  (hahaha!) Since we have not gotten covid YET I am unable to argue against the logic of “a cannonball a day keeps the covid away.”  Now that temperatures are falling in Florida, this is a bit more of a wake up than it once was, but he has persisted.

Son (22) is still living in Kansas City. He started the year working for a company that makes custom competition bikinis for female body builders. (You probably read in the paper about how the bottom fell out of that market.) There are some really disgruntled very shiny looking, overly spray tanned, muscularly chiseled ladies around. So – what is son doing in the meantime, you might ask? I guess I would say that he’s living the life you would expect a furloughed 22-year-old seamster in a pandemic to live. He’s burning himself out on Raman Noodles and pretending that the floor is human interaction. Actually – there are some people introverted enough that social distancing/lockdown has been a dream come true and son is one of those people.

Daughter (19) resides in an apartment a few miles away from us. In this whole crazy year, she did not miss one day of work. Her company shut down for 6 weeks starting in April and the next day she had found temporary employment. She is a co-manager at (national retail store) and is professionally responsible beyond her years. I’m fairly certain she holds a record for “most covid testing of a teenager” – I believe she’s at six times. When daughter moved out, husband insisted on keeping Baxter (dogs are having the BEST YEAR EVER with people home all the time). In the spirit of retribution daughter adopted Oliver, a black Chihuahua AKA The Dog Who Is Always In Trouble. He never sleeps. It’s like she has him do cocaine before he comes over. I can say two things about Oliver. 1) he’s adorable 2) he’s definitely the dog daughter deserves.

I have turned into a large 5-year-old this year. I have a bin of dress up clothes to prove it. I wear my hair in pigtails. I’m learning to play the saxophone. I have a teacher on zoom. I’m in Book 2!

I became a Zumba instructor. I have taught 32 classes online (never yet with a live student!)

I wrote on my blog SO MUCH. I started raising Monarchs from eggs I find on my milkweed plants. Yesterday I released my 42^nd butterfly!

Husband built me a tiki hut (Kayla’s She-Shack). I filled our backyard landscaping with pink flamingos.

2020 did not at all end up giving me the year I had planned. But as it turns out, 2020 gave me everything I needed. Time and space to grow into myself. Petticoats and flower crowns. A new chapter with my husband. Butterflies and cannonballs. The memories of being newly married and eating Hamburger Helper on a folding table. The Florida sun, breakfasts on zoom with friends I wouldn’t see otherwise, elbow bumps, waiving at the end of online meetings, the need to buy toilet paper and Clorox wipes when I see them.

And a visceral reaction to the word “unprecedented”!