The front of the holiday card that my husband, Frank, and I sent out this year features three photos of us taken in sites we visited in 2024: the Xochimilco canals of Mexico City, the Santa Ana Volcano in El Salvador, and one of the Gilded Age mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. We should do a better job of remembering to take off our sunglasses for pictures.
On the back of the card appears my annual yule-themed light verse abomination. As in previous years, the text can be sung to the tune of a Christmas carol—in this case, “We Three Kings.”
We two queens of Cambridgepark Drive
Bring you word that we’re still alive.
From the Bay State, here’s an update
Right before ’25:
This past year, where did we go?
P-town, Newport, Mexico.
Kept our jobs and
Love you gobs and
What more do you need to know?
Originally, I had planned to supply parody lyrics to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” but Frank wanted something that gave a more personalized recap of the year, so I scrapped my initial effort. For readers of this blog, though, I hereby present that discarded doggerel as a kind of bonus track.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas — please don’t fuss or fight.
Slap a smile on — fake it only for a night.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas — make the yuletide gay
Gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay GAAAAAAAAAAAAYY!
Here we are, just the two of us;
What you knew of us
Holds true:
Boston, Frommer’s, and higher ed. —
Plus, our dog’s still dead
(Boo-hoo)
Someday soon let’s all meet up together — don’t care where or how.
In the meantime, make yourself a solemn vow
To have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
I suppose it would help your reading comprehension to know that we live in the Boston area and that in our day jobs I’m a travel editor and Frank works at an institution of higher learning. As for the dead-dog reference, the text of last year’s card had to do with the passing of our beloved pooch, Lucy.
While we’re looking back at the year, I figure this would be a good time to gather links to my least objectionable bits of writing from 2024. Lucky for you, I’m a sprinter rather than a marathoner, so all of the pieces are relatively short and unlikely to cause knee damage.
Some Stuff I Wrote This Year
TRAVEL
- a Jaws-themed tour of Martha’s Vineyard (published June 7)
- a collection of viral travel hacks you definitely shouldn’t try (published June 24)
- a tour of Fenway Park that doesn’t require sitting through a baseball game (published Sept. 26)
THEATER
To tell you the truth, I didn’t have the most productive year on the playwriting front. But over the summer a one-act I wrote, titled Class IV, did get a reading at the Valdez Theatre Conference in Alaska. Sorry, I don’t have a published version of the script to share with you. But hey, I got to go to Alaska.
THIS BLOG
- Toenail Clippers (posted Jan. 11): against baseball (who knew I had so many thoughts about the national pastime?)
- Meditation Station (posted Feb. 20): against the relentless positivity of my fitness app
- Buckingham Palace Refrigerator Magnet (posted Sept. 20): against touring the palaces of Europe; contains also: the secret to marital bliss
Thanks for abiding my nonsense for another year. Happy holidays to you and yours!
Indirect Objects 