Ba humbug

I got my first Christmas letter today and soon I will be receiving several every day. So in order to prepare for the Christmas letter season I have classified the four most annoying types of letters we seem to receive.

1. Braggy- if the words car, soccer goal, promotion, advanced level, or bright are mentioned in the letter, chances are it is a braggy letter
2. Schmaltzy- if the "non-writing" spouse adds a paragraph to the letter about how wonderful the "writing" spouse is then I call that schmaltzy. Typically when I read these I just want to respond, "get a room".
3. Cutsey- "written" by the dog or the toddler. As a caveat to the cutsey letters, some really are cute, others really are not. It is a fine line.
4. TMI- more than one page? Way too much information.

Don't get me wrong, I really do like to get these letters. But I do sometimes wonder at why people include what they include. Some of the kindest and humble people write very unkind and unhumble letters. And then mail these letters of not-much holiday cheer off sealed with a stamp of baby Jesus.

Annoying line in my letter today:
"We are so proud of our daughter, her teacher says she is performing on an advanced level in every area at school."

So, with this sentence I am left wondering a few things. Would this child's parents not be proud if she was performing, *gasp*, averagely? And what exactly is above average for a first grader and why is it important that all her parent's friends and family know this information? Should we too be proud, amazed or maybe jealous?

And this particular family is Christian, so of course there is the requisite line about God being good to them during the year. But once again I am left wondering was God good to them because their daughter is doing well in school and her husband got a raise? Seems a bit sad to imply that God wasn't good to those who have just average children and still make the same amount of money as last year.

So yes, I do have a love/hate relationship with Christmas letters. Except my own of course.

5 Good Ideas

Just putting this here, I read it someplace and thought I might like a copy to hold myself accountable. So far we are doing pretty well. Of course, it is pretty easy to work up a sweat here in Texas (see #1). It is currently in the mid-eighties here in November!

The research is telling us that if we want to improve attitudes, mental and physical health and academic performance, we as parents need to promote the following 5 things:

• Children need to play outside for at least an hour after the school day. They should be at the point where they are almost sweating.

• Dinner with your family every night or at least 4 times a week. This is shown to decrease eating disorders in females, decrease smoking and drug abuse rates in males and recent research suggests it teaches life-long good eating habits—more fruits and vegetables.

• Early to bed. Research suggests that children need 10-12 hours of sleep a day to be ready to learn.

• Limited television, video games and computer time, especially an hour before bed time.

• Reading time every evening. This is a great time for the whole family to sit and read together.

Early bird catches the worm

Is it true that one day the kids will be teenagers who don't want to get out of bed??? 'Cause I just can't picture that now.

Everyone was up and on our bed asking for books at 6:15 this morning. It is now only 9am and I feel like it should be at least lunch time, maybe dinner time!