Christmas Letters I Have Writ: Letter No. 5 (2015) ~ [WITH Higher Math!] ~ Original Photography and Original Christmas Wishes In Lettered Form ~

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More Joys Of The Holiday Letter ~

It's with a heavy, post-holiday heart that I put out the LAST of these historic Christmas letters. And I'm pretty sure if I scrunch down my little audio-factors, I can just about hear folks out there muttering under breath: "But it's WAY past the Holidays...what's up with THAT?"

I suppose it's all two fold. Who WOULDN'T want to stretch out the Holiday joy each year a bit longer than calendar-ly suggested. More fun into the first month or two of the new year. It happens...I recently bought four boxes of leftover candy canes at the grocery store, for THIRTY THREE CENTS a box. GREAT ZOTT! Can't beat that with a blender!!!

Plus, I started off down this whole wander-path of the written past, so we really SHOULD get to the final destination, sooner or later. This letter is the last of it's kind (except maybe my up-to-date, 2018, not yet penned/posted.) And this one is pretty much my favorite too. Let's face it, any Holiday greeting mailed out with a mathematical word problem enclosed, is better than burnt white toast in the morning. (Sure are a lot of kitchen-based metaphors being tossed around here today.)

So, here it is. Another letter, sent out to all the people of import I knew way back in 2015. Or at least the ones I had correct and accurate addresses for. Believe it or not, this Christmas letter was mailed out amazingly EARLY. In October! I thought I'd try something new in 2015, and put myself ahead of this whole Holiday kitten-kabeezle. (Particularly since my timely letter of Christmas 2014 was sent out right before Easter.)

So, WITH further ado, once more, here we go:

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Letter 2015

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T’is not yet quite Christmas,
And all through the house,
Not a creature is stirring,
EXCEPT that darn mouse.
But hey, it’s too early,
To mess with you, MOUSE.
Some kid’s dressed like a pirate…
Outside my FRONT-HOUSE!!

_{Poetry Note: Autumnal Variant-adaptedly excerpted from "The Mouse Before Christmas", by D.D.Schteinn, c.2007, in turn loosely adapted from "The Night Before Christmas", by C.C. Moore, 1823.}

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" Holy Great Pumpkin’s imminent arrival, Batman, this thing is getting out EARLY.." And as such, is an amazing endeavor within itself. Mixed emotions and misplaced, comic book-hero metaphors aside…yes, I suppose this IS getting out to you a bit earlier than previous Holiday editions.

One could say I’ve 'Seen the Light', concerning this whole business of the timeliness of life and its endeavors most important. Though in hindsight, the 'Light' of impetus DID have a slight, orange-ish glow to it, emanating from the neighbor’s front porch this past week [Ѽ]. But one must sop up inspirational dew-water from wherever the puddle of enlightenment may reside. Even if it does smell a bit like a late October, fall-pastry pie.

And I suppose, to be completely honest, I must make note in opposite directionality here. I cannot take ALL the credit--regarding this thrift of prompt circumstance, and its motivational push-start. This zippy correspondation-al speed-thing was bolstered by some light reading, recently discovered while waiting in line at the local A&P Grocery Market. It is SO kind of the grocer mavens to provide us shoppers with those small library stacks of fascinating periodicals to peruse while waiting to check out with our groceries. They come in quite handy at times, when circumstance requires one to look 'distractedly busy', while waiting in the queue.

This usually arises when I have greater than the requisite 7 items 'en-basket', while standing in the 'improper' line. Sometimes it’s nice to have a large, glossy magazine to hide behind, when those disquieting looks come shooting my way, once discovered by the other shopper folk that can accurately count grocery-based basket items better than I.

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_{(Note: For future shopping reference: “…greater than six bananas per bunch may be considered as one item in the ‘increased efficiency line’ in all Public Grocer Shopping Emporiums.” – As taken from The Consolidated Grocer’s and Meat Cutter's Association, Handbook of Conduct, Style and Proper Shopping Etiquette for the Modern Woman -circa 1952, Topeka, Kansas.)}

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Back to shopping and my brilliant discovery. There I was, in line, thumbing my way along into one of the more recent periodicals on high, when I happened upon an article discussing the proper etiquette concerning the timeliness of early Holiday Letter output. Something to the effect of: “When to Send This Year’s Holiday Letter”. Oh, the highly opportune moments of these life events when they strike.

Possessing the requisite ‘Enquiring Mind’, I dove mentally head-long into the fascinating article, and in time, discovered a little known, yet perfectly formulated equation for calculating precisely when to send out one’s Season's Greetings. And I’ve put this knowledge to good use for figuring the timeliness of this year’s Holiday Missive. (For those of you not as tuned-in to the cycles of life and resulting thriftiness of time’s passage, such as myself--and as equally perplexed at such dilemmae’ of said-life, when things DO go askew, I thought I might share this information as a future help-mate. The formulary went something as follows):

Where as:

DbH= ∑ (X+1) – ΔT/t (Mb[ȵ1…ȵ27])
FcA(☼)[(2Πr²/d)+17bs³-365]

                                (Please Show Your Work)        

Answer:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

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Math Problem- Key To The Equation-al Building Blocks

_{*N.I.S.P.P.M.H.C.-National Institute of Standards and Practices for Properly Mailed Holiday Correspondence}

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If anyone is interested in perusing further upon this mathematical subject, I unfortunately don’t recall the exact name of the Periodical in question. Though I’m pretty sure it is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, as such. However, I DO know it was in the September 2015 issue, and should be easy enough to find, if so inclined.

The article was right before the one titled “Big Game Hunters From Mars Killed Our Dinosaurs” and followed the equally fascinating “Skeleton of Titanic Crew-Member/Survivor Found Floating in Life-Ring on North Atlantic Currents”. (There WAS a picture for the Titanic event, so I’m pretty sure that’s true. The first article seems a bit ‘out there’ to me). I do hope you can find the article, if so imbued with interest in the original, said-such subject of proper Holiday Letter etiquette and resulting sendage.

All I can say, is that after working day and night through this little computational gem, October came up as the proper month for this year's fascinating letter.

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OK, let’s get on to the tofu and garden potatoes of this early, Holiday Greeting. It’s been a truly wild year thus far. HH and I attempted a first…we entered items of the garden-ish variety into the local County Fair this past summer. We submitted dried raisins, plums, pear-steak slices, various dried beans, spruce-tree vinegar, and a bunch of tiny zip lock baggies full of other stuff. We won many awards, and even more importantly, something like $76.42 in hard, cashmoney prizes.

I had no idea messing about in the dirt could be so lucrative. Also, my Shiro plums got Best in Show, which was pretty nifty, but the coolest award was reserved for my photo entry. There was a special, one-time category this year, sponsored by a local steel fabrication shop. The theme was photographs of Steel.

I took the obvious route on this one, taking a self-portrait of…self…in a Kevin Bacon-styled wig, and printed it in classical blue and white tones. I struck my best Derek Zoolander pose, perched in front of some rusty steel roofing tacked onto the back fence as a backdrop. I framed and matted it, and titled it “Blue Steel”. It didn’t win any 'Official' Fair awards, but was still a big hit. At least with one of the sponsors, the local Neighborhood Tattoo Collective. They liked my entry so much, they bestowed upon me a $50 gift certificate for a free tattoo at their parlor of business.

Now arises one of those large quandaries of life: Deciding if I am an inked-up sort of dude or not. I'm thinking maybe a Mr. Potato Head tat, etched somewhere discreet, like maybe somewhere along the receding bun-line. Doing his best Blue Steel impersonation, with pursed fish lips, eyes all askew, rounded out with a little “B.S.” below the ‘tater tat'. I think I need to ponder this potentially classic brain-squall a bit longer. I'm not really sure that $50 will get me much more than a little “B.S.” anyway.

Let's see, other news. HH and I met her family in Colorado for a vacation at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies this past summer. It was a rollicking bit of fun, hiking all about, playing Goofy Golf, and spending an inordinate amount of time in the dining hall. I spent an even MORE inordinate amount of time at the Craft Cabin, tie-dying bandannas by hand. I may have gotten a bit carried away at this artistic endeavor, creating enough of them to “choke a small horse”, as many in the area were wont to point out. Though I’m not sure why any diminutive horse in his right mind would even attempt to ingest 8 or 9 brightly colored hankies in one sitting. Guess I still overdid it a bit.

But I showed those craft-based, D.I.Y. naysayers in the end. I recently found out that October 30th is International Bandanna Day, so I was fully stocked and ready this year. (Better than November 15th, which is
National Bundt Pan Day. Particularly since I don’t even have a Bundt pan in my pantry. (Wonder why ‘Bundt’ is a noun and always capitalized? I bet it’s because Langstromm G. Bundt accidentally ran over his wife’s cake pan in the driveway back in ’32 with the Pontiac, bending it 'just so' for the perfect cake, and thus moving the pan, and himself, forever into baking implement, historical infamy.)

Guess that’s about it for our trip to the Rockies, except a very large bear almost came into my room through the open screen door one night for a visit at the Lodge. Talk about exciting. But that’s a story for a different time. I’m rapidly running out of blank-space here.

So…here’s wishing you all the Very Best, and a very, very:

Happy Holidays

...coming on down the all-too-soon, calendric pike. And in due course following, a very very:

Happy New Years!!

With all the Sinceretivety one may muster on a Christmas-y day in October,

D.D. Schteinn

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And for those out there with a penchant for past holiday-letter precedent, here-in thus far omitted:

“Cats”!!!

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_{Poste Script -- This thing seems to get longer each year. Maybe Next Year I should consider some sort of Advent Letter Series.}

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[FOUND ON THE BACK OF THE ENVELOPE of THESE CHRISTMAS LETTERS SENT OUT IN 2015]:

Does Anyone Get What That Says Above? *

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~ Finto ~

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Thanks for stopping in and viewing my last Christmas Letter of Day's Gone Past. If you have any thoughts about sending out, or getting these things in the mail, Christmas traditions of times gone by AND still here, extra extra long Christmas correspondence, or anything else this post reminds you of, please feel free to comment away in the spaces below. I'd love to hear from you.

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Please UPVOTE, COMMENT and FOLLOW if you enjoy my works.

And go to @ddschteinn -- There's a whole lot more...

_{Posted: 01/11/2019 @ 12:05}

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Excerpts From Late-Night Conversations With A Mechanical Cat

Fact Number 112

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*Answer to the Visual Riddle: "Do Not Be Dismissive, Over Holiday Missives"

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