Greetings Friends ...

Dear Friends and family –                 For more than a decade, we have made it our mission not to report the happy happenings of our lives but to spread misery. It was something that Robb demanded after Tommy was born, letting me know that people don’t want to know that we have cute kids who do cute things. But what the original Grinch could not know was how much more people wanted to laugh at us … and so began the letters.                 Robb started out this new year by walking into the study with a strange expression on his face. “This egg nog isn’t right.”   I had no idea what he was talking about. In the 18 years we’ve been married, I’ve never purchased egg nog, but there was much finger waving toward the refrigerator. Upon investigation, it appears he chugged Egg Beaters. However coincidentally, he was sick a few days later ...

Dear Friends and Family – It’s that time of year again …If you’ve never received a holiday letter from us before, the rules are this: In the spirit of giving, we won’t tell you how amazing and perfect our lives are (as this would be a complete work of fiction) but we will make you feel so much better about your lives by relaying the bad, the ugly, the disturbing. We decided to wait until the U.S. housing market hit an all time low before trying to sell our house. Next, we set up a schedule so that with our own insane schedule we would have to be out of the house at a moment’s notice or what seemed to be when the house was always in chaos. About this same time, Robb began growing out some weird beard that made him look like a Puritan because, I later found out from a friend, he knew it was driving me crazy. Robb never quite got the concept of selling a house. It was very annoying to him that people would call and actually want to see the house … without him skulking about with his b...

Dear Friends and Family: you should know, Santa Claus is not who you think he is. As you know by now, every year we send out our annual holiday letter, spelling out all the things that have gone wrong so that you – our dear readers – might find just a wee bit more sunshine in your own lives. For nearly a decade, we’ve dished the dirt, but nothing could have prepared even us for our own BAD SANTA story. As many of you may know, I am the editor of a community magazine, and for an article, I interviewed a guy who plays Santa. He’s super into it and wanted only to be photographed as ‘ol St. Nick. But when the format changed, and he was asked to pose for a picture as his normal self, Santa flipped out. He ranted and raved, threatened a lawsuit, rambled incoherently, and hung up on me (twice)! Later, Santa sent me a viral worm in the way of an e-greeting card. So clever is this diabolical Santa that he has a ‘Naughty and Nice’ book where parents provide personal information about their c...

            Our septic tank overflowed, the dogs almost killed Little Dude (cat), and we were skunked. Tomato juice does nothing but make you mad. After my big important interview with Homeland Security, I looked down to see that my pants zipper was down. My novel about small-town Texas, “White Trash,” while in the hands of an important someone, has still not panned out. But when Tommy was asked by one of his teachers what his mother writes, he responded, “Oh, some white trash stuff.”             We try to keep things low key for Robb, but it’s really hard. Channel 8 contacted us for a story and we obliged. Prior to that, I’d been caught by a news crew as I was coming out of City Hall. I was asked if I had an opinion on pedophiles. What could I say?   No? So I was on the news, offering my opinion on pedophiles. A week later, another news agency called for a story on the en...

For a decade now, it’s been our mission here at Allred Farms to spread doom and gloom during this annual time of merriment.   It is a gift originated by the original grump – Robb – to be sure you don’t get the typical, syrupy-sweet holiday letter reporting all the amazing things that happened in the year past.    With that, we hope our year of disasters makes yours seem a little brighter!       Compliments of Lightning, the wild horse, I tore tendons and ligaments in my left shoulder, forcing me to take a hiatus from kickbox instruction while I decided on surgery.   Our cat, Suzy, was lured across the street by a little girl who had been specifically told not to do so and was killed by a car.   Then Pete killed our other cat, Seven.   Tommy badly burned his feet, walking barefooted across a day old burn-pile.   He also got ringworm and liked it so much he decided to share it with all of us.   It really is the gift that keeps on...

Greetings! Oh, sure, there were happy times in our home this year. Cute kids did and said cute things. But let’s face it, even if I told you about those cute things, would you really remember them next year? No. Instead, let me start with a note about dental care. Heed this lesson well all you parents of children who will be needing orthodontia: It doesn’t matter how often you tell your kids “Don’t wrap your retainer in a napkin and place it on your lunch tray.” They don’t listen. It doesn’t matter how often their orthodontist reiterates this advice. They don’t care. They will continue to wrap retainers in napkins so that they might throw them away, so that you then will have to plunge your arms elbow-deep into public waste cans and fish through sticky drinks and rotten food. Not once or twice, mind you, but numerous times. And, still, each time you will tell yourself that the child has learned her lesson. But this is a lie. There will be more days of retainer-trashing. Days like...