by John Dufresne
DEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS,
Well, the Christmas season is upon us once again. Joyeux Noel! from all of us on the farm in Mount Morris. It’s snowing outside. Holiday music (Harry Simeone Chorale) plays on the stereo, fire crackles in the fireplace, cocoa steams in my Hark the Herald Angels mug.
The past year has been a busy and prosperous one for the Hamms. Delvin’s mom, Claire, has lost pretty much all of her short-term memory, but she doesn’t let that bother her. What a trouper! She is a hero and an inspiration to all of us. As long as she can get to church and watch her stories on TV, she’s quite content. And you all know only too well how difficult a time she has had of it “married to the wrong man for fifty-four years” as she puts it. Claire has been ever so much more relaxed since Harvey went to his “reward.” She has taken a shine to the Meals-on-Wheels man, Bobby.
In September Delvin was awarded the contract to paint all three of the Sack ‘n Saves in the county and was able to put my brother Eddie back to work. Delvin and I are into our sixth month of marriage counseling and it has brought us much closer than we could have imagined. Dr. Johnson is amazed at how well we are doing. We have reached a place of total honesty. It took me several sessions to get over the revelation that Delvin had had a two-year “fling” (he called it) with Martha Stewart (not that Martha Stewart!). I told Delvin that a “fling” was a brief period of indulging your impulses. I said, What you had–and had is the operative word, Delvin–what you had was a sustained adulterous affair. I took up with Herb Woodley, the florist, to get back at Delvin. Immature but obligatory, I’m afraid. Our dalliance was unsatisfying (we both faked orgasms) but exemplary.
I had quite a battle on my hands this summer with the varmints in the garden. The squirrels were more a nuisance than anything else. The possums turned out to be shy of ammonia and moth balls. The raccoons, however, were birds of a different feather. A family took up residence in the beech tree and raided the vegetable garden routinely. I spread coyote urine to no good effect. I’d look out the kitchen window and see the mother and her three babies traipsing through the tomato plants like they owned the place. They tore up the lawn and devastated the lettuce. I bought a small rifle and put an end to their shenanigans.
We hardly recognized the Beaver when he came home from college at Thanksgiving. (He came home a vegetarian, by the way, so thank goodness I’d solved the raccoon problem.) His tattoos don’t look that bad. The pierced eyebrow takes some getting used to. His band, The Flaming Assholes, won second place in the Greater Athens Battle of the Bands. We couldn’t be prouder. The Beav is spending his holidays in his room eating sunflower seeds and playing Fortnite on the computer.
The twins, Mike and Gracie, turned eight in July. Our little Gracie joined the Indian Princesses and took the name Princess Rainbow Flower. She will be the West Wind at the next induction ceremony at the Longhouse. Delvin has agreed to edit the Teepee Talk newsletter and take over as Wampum Bear. He always takes on more than he can chew. Mike, our scamp, is calling himself Freeze Weasel these days. He says his ambition is to sit in his room in his boxer shorts and wait for some rich relative to die and leave him a million dollars. Mike was given a social promotion into fourth grade. We’re hoping he buckles down and takes reading seriously this year.
We lost our beloved Bitti Bunkins in August when she caught up with the Winnebago she was chasing and slipped under the front tire. Bitti was twelve and had lived a good life. I myself took a millinery class at night school. Made a lovely trimmed felt hat for my final. This year I’ve promised myself I’ll take the genealogy class at the community college. I need to find out where all the Turnipseeds and Weatherheads come from exactly, and I am running out of time. We hope you all have a happy, holy, and sane holiday season.
Sincerely,
Marie