Your Humble Narrator is in a Quandary, which In and Of Itself would not be a particularly Novel (let alone Noteworthy) event were it not for the Remarkably Rare (if not Unique) fact that the Quandary aforementioned is not, as The Patient Reader Might Assume, the result of Your Humble Narrator’s Grammatical Style or any other Cause Originating in the Action of Your Humble Narrator, but rather the Quandary which is under discussion in this sentence (and yes, this is still the same sentence as the Patient, yet Diligent Reader (a small, yet not non-existent set of Temporal Beings)) is due to Causes Outside the Control of Your Humble Narrator, which (again) would be neither Noteworthy nor Novel were it not for the Further Quite Disturbing Fact that the Quandary originates in an Alteration in Cultural Norms of the Society Writ Large in which said Society has seemingly abandoned a Tradition Long-Standing, which has required Your Humble Narrator to simultaneously Bemoan the End of Tradition (that Noble and Praiseworthy cultural artifact) and to abandon the very long-standing Practice which gave Birth to Your Humble Narrator in the First Place.
The Quandary in question (and, yes, the present sentence properly belongs in the last paragraph, but since many of the Patient Readers are not as patient as would be required by Your Humble Narrator’s sentence structure, the present sentence was moved to the following paragraph in order to give the appearance that this Epistle is something other than a single run-on sentence) results from an Event Apocalyptic. The Christmas Card has Died. Your Humble narrator has noticed the Death Throes of this Ancient Tradition for many years, but in this, the Year of Our Lord 2011, it is Official. Christmas Card, RIP.
The evidence of the Death is Overwhelming. In addition to the fact that none of the Christmas Cards received in the Hartley Household this year actually had a pulse, the Hartley Household has received less than a mere half-dozen such cards. Your Humble Narrator is not surprised by this dearth of Christmas Cards received: no member of the Hartley Household seems particularly keen on sending Christmas Cards this year either. And, lest the Patient Reader assume this is merely Proof by Anecdote, the Wall Street Journal, that arbiter of all News which is Newsworthy, contained a lengthy article on the demise of the Christmas Cards and the hardship this is causing companies which had heretofore relied on massive sales of such items.
Now the Death of the Christmas Card is not normally the sort of thing one associates with the Form Letters traditionally inserted into Said Cards which give details about the lives of the Family Unit sending out Such Cards. In Your Humble Narrator’s Case, however, the Death of the Christmas Card is an event most ominous because, as hinted at above, Your Humble Narrator exists only in the Christmas Card. Thus arises the existential question: if there are no Christmas Cards does Your Humble Narrator Cease to Exist? Yet, Your Humble Narrator Thinks (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and thus Is. So when Essence precedes Being can Being continue to exist when Essence is destroyed by the vagaries of culture? On such matters Your Humble Narrator will ponder throughout the season,
But, in the meantime, Your Humble Narrator has joined the 21st Century and is hereby converting the Hartley Household Christmas Epistle to an electronic format. Said epistle is thus having its World Premiere on this blog. Loud hosannas ring out through the land. Patient readers everywhere will still be able to discover the Activities of the Hartley Household by reading the present letter.
Alas, as long-time readers of this Hartley Household Christmas epistle undoubtedly suspect, the Hartley Household once again had absolutely no Activities Worthy Of Note (AWON). The Long-Suffering Wife of Your Humble Narrator (LSWYHN) is shaking her head in disgust at this claim (or would be if she read it), but despite the LSWYHN’s insistence that there are AWON, specific examples are yet to be forthcoming.
For the first time in many years, there are no new additions to the Hartley Household. Your Humble Narrator has exercised that portion of mental activity not engaged in contemplating the aforementioned existential crisis and has not been able to imagine any inanimate object which Your Humble Narrator, using an excess of verbiage and a ready supply of commas, can turn into a worthy item of note to be added to this section. Indeed, honesty compels Your Humble Narrator to note that due to Death and other Similar Events, the Livestock of the Hartley Household has declined this year by several chickens, one fish, and Emma. (Unfortunately, Dante is still among the living.)
Emma has departed the Fair Premises in which the Hartley Household resides, but has headed to a different location than the Chickens and Fish which met an untimely Demise. She is currently residing at Mount Holyoke College, the fair Institution of Higher Learning which has long proved the means of subsistence for the Hartley Household. At said Institution, Emma rides in Horse Beauty Contests (known as Dressage to Insiders (into which Company the patient reader can now assert membership)). Your Humble Narrator is under the Belief (perhaps a Delusional belief) that Emma is also attending class and other such matters which traditionally accompany matriculation in institutions of Higher Learning, but information on that matter is difficult to acquire because Emma would prefer to discuss Four legged beasts. (She will also be highly annoyed at the disparaging remark about Dante (the Dog) in the preceding paragraph were any of the Patient Readers to be So Unkind as to mention it to her.)
Lily, to the surprise of nobody, still talks. And talks. Now 16, she has decided to enroll in a course on legal studies in which her hyperdeveloped communication skills can be put to use for course credit. Not surprisingly, she excels at talking. She has had much practice. Dressing in an unconventional, yet somehow pleasing to the eye, manner, and publically practicing the art of making long-winded arguments in a persuasive manner is a course of action most normal to the Ever Awesome Lily (she specifically told Your Humble Narrator to include the word Awesome in this letter as an adjective describing her). (Lily is also very jealous that Your Humble Narrator has a Twitter account, by the way; she specifically requested that this epistle (the Christmas Epistle no less!) tell one and all that she is most unhappy about said account, but Your Humble Narrator, along with the Perceptive Reader, thinks she Protests too much.)
Clara, now 12, continues to age one year at a time. She has long been the utterly adorable youngest member of the Hartley Household. She still is. She is also Brilliant Beyond Belief, Amusing Beyond all Measure, Polite and Kind and Generous to a fault. If only she would clean her room on a regular basis, she would be the Perfect Child. Clara, by the way (and, yes, surely the Patient Reader is shocked by the presence of an aside in this paragraph), seriously misses the presence of Emma in the Hartley Household.
Janet, the LSWYHN, is still not only the oldest member of the Hartley Household but also its most active member. Indeed, Janet seriously threatens to undermine the unblemished record of the Hartley Household for inactivity during a year. Fortunately, the other members of the Household have so little activity worthy of note, that the average activity of the members of the household is still artificially close to zero. During the last year, Janet’s Greenhouse business (Terra Verde nursery) grew exponentially (which is easy to do in the second year of an enterprise as long as one is not specific about the exponent, so it should be added that the exponent in this case is greater than 1 (but (sadly) less than 2)). She continues her advanced study in field of Landscape Design and is now a mere one course away from her graduate certificate in said field. She also continues to hold the Hartley Household together; no mean feat.
And with that, Your Humble Narrator wishes You, the Patient Reader of the first annual Blog Christmas Card Epistle, a Very Merry Christmas.
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