Sunday, November 23, 2008

My Christmas Letter

On Saturday I finished writing our annual Christmas letter to family and friends. We always struggle to get this out, but somehow we manage to send it out before Easter.

As I was pulling together information about our year, I initially thought that I hadn't accomplished much with my writing in 2008 . . . until I actually began to pull out files and make a list of everything I'd done. Then it hit me:

I'll have three new books published in 2009, the most in any single year since 1998 (when I had five books published in a single year). I will also have five audio CDs produced in 2009 (and most of this material is previously unpublished and ranges in subject matter from a collection of my Christmas memoirs, to a CD for cancer support partners, to a CD of commonly-themed sermons for tough times). I have also had a few stories published in various journals, works in an anthology, and one or two articles in magazines. And I'm not going to number sermons, newsletter articles, or other correspondence like emails and blogs in that count . . . I'd just lose track.

In short, I've been busier than a one-armed-paper-hanger (quote by Klinger in a 1983 M*A*S*H episode).

But I did finish the Christmas letter . . . and it's one of my best to date. Insane, irreverent, markedly pessimistic in my usual old fashioned Christmasy style. My mother may send it back.

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