The 10th Annual Boring Mitchell Holiday Letter--Special Aluminum Anniversary Edition

To those who have been blessed with the misfortune of receiving one of these letters every year since 2001, welcome to the beginning of the end of the most delightful decade of holiday seasons you’ve ever endured. For the rest of you who joined this elite group at any time after the initial insult, back issues are available for a nominal fee. As a gift to our longsuffering friends, family, supporters, and stalkers, plans are in the works for a director’s cut unrated version commemorative box set including ten years’ worth of bonus features with outtakes, bloopers, and options to enjoy it subtitled and dubbed in broken French, Texican, pig Latin, and/or braille. Look for it on Amazon soon. Use coupon code “sucker” for free shipping.

The year wasn’t as great for us as it was for the team that beat the Texas Rangers, but at least it didn’t treat us like a Charlie Sheen escort. Aside from my heroic performance in a highway emergency, Katy’s (unrelated) ambulance ride, Mike’s meal with a football legend, and Luke’s canoeing face plant, our 2010 was relatively uneventful, so let go of any unreasonable entertainment expectations right now. While the world dealt with earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, floods, inept terrorists, illegal immigrants, the BP oil spill, a depressed economy, vuvuzela noise, WikiLeaks, Sarah Palin’s kid on Dancing with the Stars, and the embarrassment that is Lindsay Lohan, the Mitchell family went about the business of living the model upper-middle-class life which has become the envy of even the most casual observer.

Katy won the family contest for the year’s highest health care expense. In addition to her allergies and a weak gag reflex that put me on a first-name basis with the school nurse, our daughter’s other cries for attention kept us busy. In June, after I humored her with an eye doctor visit to quell the relentless “everything is blurry” melodrama, she spited us with a legitimate need for glasses. The first pair was lost within a week, but was found just as the replacement emerged in pieces from the dryer. In July, she jumped into a river and managed to sustain a brutal to-the-bone gash across her leg. She lost a lot of blood, but proved how tough she was when I arrived on the scene. With an IV in her arm and a bloody bandage around her leg, she yelled, “Mom, are you okay?” In October, she had her braces taken off and was entrusted with two hot pink retainers which have already seen more of a car’s back seat than any respectable orthodontic hardware ever should. She turned 11 last month and has tackled 5th grade handily with little help from her parents. In the spring, due to a ballot tabulation error or bribery, her basketball team voted her “Most Christlike.” No doubt fueled by this honor, she took it upon herself to join the church worship team and became its youngest singer. She later exhibited more Christlikeness when, upon seeing a news story about Mel Gibson, noted, “He’s a douche.” In the summer, she attended as many camps as the calendar and the bank account would allow, and spent the rest of the year perfecting her singing and acting skills with drama classes. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, drawing, and not cleaning her room. In other news, she reportedly passed a piece of gum she swallowed when she was three.

Luke turned 14 and is surprisingly much less awkward than his appearance would suggest. Despite inheriting my disorganizational skills, he has maintained straight A’s and perfect attendance in 8th grade so far. And in October, he was named school district student of the month. We’re also proud to say that he’s only missed the afternoon bus twice, and only once did he mistakenly wear my jeans to school. He spent the summer with scout camp, basketball camp, and two church youth group trips: one an urban clean-up mission, the other, apparently, a vacation with naps perfectly-timed for Bible study. The summer also marked Luke’s triumphant breaking of last year’s record for time spent not touching a toothbrush. This fall, he helped his track team win district, sold a disappointing amount of Boy Scout popcorn, and then banged up his entire face riding some rapids on the wrong side of a canoe. He bagged his first buck opening weekend, and during the butchering process, Mike identified all the deer innards for Katy and their cousins. They thoroughly enjoyed the anatomy lesson, especially when Luke tossed the deer’s junk into the woods and its testicles got hung up in a tree. What a special memory for the kids to cherish. Luke is a good inch-and-a-half taller than I am and wears the same size shoe as his dad, so I’m taking suggestions for safe and effective growth-stunting techniques. The kids are still in a race to hit puberty, and I hope that explains Katy’s appetite for peanut butter and pickle sandwiches and Luke’s newfound rebellious attitude. In a recent act of defiance, he took over the car stereo to interrupt my Eminem with his iPod’s Beethoven. This year brought a joyous milestone we’d all been eagerly anticipating. We can finally leave the kids home alone without fear of child protective services or law enforcement intervention. We’ve been richly rewarded for all the years spent training them not to put silverware in the microwave, only to order pre-authorized movies-on-demand, and not to call 911 unless it’s a real emergency. With the luxury of legal child neglect, the babysitter money savings has allowed for later nights and better wine.

Our family suffered a great loss one hot June afternoon when, after 15 years of loyal service, the beer fridge in our garage peacefully passed away. Casualties included three pizzas and a bag of fish sticks. Fortunately, the local Home Depot came through with a replacement before any beverages were harmed. In holiday news, we celebrated July 4th by eating tamales while sporting American flag T-shirts with tags that say “Hecho en Guatemala.” Katy’s quote of the year came in on October 31. She lamented, “Halloween is the only time that I can really express myself.” I wanted to go as Lady Gaga, but our dog ate my meat dress before I could squeeze into it. We had planned to go to the local Baptist church fall festival that night, but after taking another look at Katy, I decided we might not be welcome.

I turned fortysomething in April, and Katy gently suggested that I might now be too old to use the expression “Dude.” I came to the conclusion that the older I get, the more grateful I am for my awesome personality. I spent most of the year at work, on my way to or from work, thinking about work, or wishing I could throw a flight attendant temper tantrum and pull an escape chute from work. Business took me to Phoenix, Seattle, and DC as well as Dallas and a little hot spot known as Waco. I also went to Austin to do a webcast for the State Bar. After watching the video of it, I realized that the camera didn’t add ten pounds. On me, it added ten years. In July, I drove the RV by myself for the first time. During rush-hour traffic, as if it were a Toyota, the vehicle’s brakes suddenly stopped working. I kept my cool and skillfully maneuvered the speeding beast between countless defenseless cars to a safe stop. For the first time since driver’s ed, I felt the exhilaration of having cheated death. Sort of like those Chilean miners, or maybe Bret Michaels. Katy and her friend loved riding in the monster tow truck while I scraped the bottom of my purse for a tranquilizer. We ended up camping in a mechanic’s parking lot on I-35 in Pflugerville that night. Bonus RV decorating tip: Generally speaking, a dust ruffle is not worth the trouble. Finally, I’m thrilled to announce that I have now twice been able to find my car in the Target parking lot without resorting to the alarm’s panic button.

Mike’s year included trips to Tucson, Reno, and Angel Fire, New Mexico, as well as another Confederate Air Force airshow always conveniently scheduled at the coast during spring break. When he went to Green Bay for another Lambeau Field flyover, he had breakfast with Bart Starr, who, we had to explain to the kids, was kind of a big deal. Mike discovered Ancestry.com and was able to trace his roots back to Alamo heroes, Scottish royalty, and some caveman named Thrond. So far, my notable ancestors include only Danish peasants and Wild West outlaws. We are pleased to report that our family trees don’t overlap until at least five generations back. Now that he works four days a week, he spends a lot of his Mondays going on Harley rides or shopping online for investment property that we can’t afford. We took a trip to Las Vegas where he employed his Rainman-style card-counting techniques while I disregarded his warnings about the slots and found gambling to be a profitable investment strategy. In October, we celebrated our 19th anniversary and thanked each other for sharing three or four of the best years of our lives. He decided not to question why I need 23 pairs of black shoes and I feigned excitement about the new gun safe that has taken over a good quarter of my available closet space. He also purchased a big box trailer for hauling all of our motorized toys, so I countered with a new washing machine. After discovering he couldn’t keep up with Luke on his old mountain bike, he bought himself a new one in hopes that it would improve his speed. No luck yet. He’ll turn thirty-seventeen later this month, and shows no signs of testosterone loss except when I catch him watching a movie on the Hallmark channel or drinking flavored coffee.

For 2011, Katy looks forward to joining the school band so she can play her instrument of choice, the cymbals. Luke will be working with his dad restoring the vintage truck he’s getting for Christmas while I train the kids to go the extra mile and turn the dryer on after putting wet clothes in it. I hope to understand why we have a universal remote when we still need three others, purge my closet of accumulated wire hangers, finish my book, and maybe see Avatar. In addition to spending more time with his guitar, Mike will continue trying in vain to teach me how to drive. If you’ll be flying over the holidays, we wish you safe travels and gentle, non-invasive TSA molestations. Thanks for being such a gracious audience over the past ten years. The more time passes, the more valuable it becomes. May you spend what’s left of yours only on things that matter.

Love, Jill, Mike, Luke, Katy & Buzz