The 2024 Do-it-Yourself Christmas Letter

You fool! You’ve done it again, haven’t you? St. Nick is heading down the chimney in a week and you’ve forgotten to write your Christmas letter. Typical.

I mean, if you somehow managed to get it in the mail today and post-date it so you don’t look like the slacker that you are, there’s still a chance – albeit elfin in size – that the USPS can get it to your loved ones (and all the rest of the people on that list) before the yule log burns out.

But that leaves you no time to actually get a coherent letter written to put in those envelopes. Is this a hopeless mess? Of course! I mean, it would be if it wasn’t for your old pal Smidgey Claus.

Once again, I’ve got you covered. I have created the 2024 Universal DIY Christmas Letter Grid, just for you. Simply pick one item from each column in order to string together a sentence that captures the essence of your 2024. Repeat as needed to fully recap this wacky ride of a year.

Now, get to it. There’s no time to lose.

 

COLUMN 1	COLUMN 2	COLUMN 3	COLUMN 4
We lost	container ships	in	the Opening Ceremonies.
We got delayed by	Simone Biles	after	the Eras Tour.
We opened	Boeing 737 doors	during	Tyson vs. Paul.
We cried about	AI	in the middle of	men’s pommel horse.
We prayed for	Caitlin Clark	since	the leap year.
We marveled at	Elon Musk	prior to	an unscheduled rapid decompression.
We pardoned	CrowdStrike	from	exploding pagers.
We gained	Steven Nedoroscik	in the face of	the election.
We worried about	Trump vs. Harris	throughout	the Baltimore Key bridge collapse.
We abandoned	the Kansas City Chiefs	despite	the flooding.
We lived without	Cybertrucks	before	a Microsoft Windows update.

 

There you go. Now add a “Merry Christmas,” sign, and send. You’re all set.

No need to thank me. It’s just what I do. Now crack open another bottle of your favorite holiday cheer, put your feet up, and let’s see what 2025 has in store for us, shall we?

Merry Christmas, y’all!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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The 2023 Do-it-Yourself Christmas Letter

It’s five days until the big guy slides down the chimney and ransacks your fridge and wet bar, and you’ve done it again, haven’t you? You have procrastinated your family Christmas letter once again, and now you’re simply out of time.

Well, have no fear, because just like you, I’m consistent, but in the good, helpful, non-self-destructive kind of way. Once again, I have ridden in, just in the St. Nick of time to save the day. The 2023 DIY Christmas letter template is here, just for you.

So, fire up your laptop, grab a (or in your case, another) glass of cheer, and let’s get this thing handled. I have provided all the Christmas letter sections for you – you just have to fill in the lies.

 

Date

December 15, 2023

(Yes, we know this is a lie, but this way your friends and family will blame the late arrival on that damned post office.)

 

Salutation

Dear Cherished Friends and Family,

(I know that very few of them are “cherished” – especially your stupid brother – but we pretend in the Christmas letter, so don’t edit that.)

 

Obligatory gushing intro

We can’t believe how time flies! What a great year we had here in [your state, province, city, town, township, parish, county, or trailer park].

(Yes, you know it wasn’t great, we know it wasn’t great, they know it wasn’t great. Again, we pretend in the Christmas letter. Just go with it. You’ll be doing a lot of that here.)

 

Major highlight section

Our big highlight this year was [big vacation, major milestone, large achievement]. [Add details if appropriate].

(Embellish as needed or blatantly lie if none of those happened and you never left your state, province, city, town, township, parish, county, or trailer park.)

 

Best child section

(You want to start as strong as possible and this is no time to get all politically correct on me and pretend like you don’t have a favorite child. You know you do.)

[Best child name] did [academic, sports, and/or extra-curricular achievement(s)]. [Add details if appropriate].

(Embellish as needed or, again, blatantly lie if things are so sad there that even the best child accomplished nothing.)

 

Questionable child section

[Questionable child name] did [academic, sports, and/or extra-curricular activities].

(Note: use a minimum of a 1.5x multiplier on any grades, stats, etc. because you know they could have done so much better if it wasn’t for that idiot teacher, teammate, classmate, etc.)

 

Worst child section

(Keep this one brief, and use words like “potential” and “enthusiastic.”)

[Worst child name] did [any tiny accomplishment at all, told with spin like a DJ on a merry-go-round]

 

Parents and in-laws section

(Again, this section is going to be nothing but fairy tales.)

We got to see [parents or in-laws] at [encounter during the year] and it was [completely fabricated glowing adjectives].

(Repeat as necessary, you poor, poor soul.)

 

Spouse section

(This is where we really score some points!)

My amazing [spouse’s name] has been [glowing report akin to the kind of embellishment you used on your resume].

 

Your section

(Time to finish this thing strong!)

[Lies, lies, lies.]

 

Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

 

 

You’re welcome. Now just sign, copy and send. You’re all set.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

 

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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We Possess Sprinklers

I noticed one of our clumps of decorative grass by our front walk was looking a little brownish the other day (read: completely dead-looking), and realized I hadn’t turned on the sprinkler system yet.

Spring has sprung, but I had been lulled into a state of non-sprinklering by the winter we just had here in Northern California, which can only be described as a six-month monsoon with slight pauses for drizzle.

So yesterday I flipped the sprinkler controls in the garage to “on,” and this morning they ran for the first time this year. About an hour after they were supposed to have been finished, I was out on the driveway and noticed the three sprinklers on the small lawn to the right of the driveway were still on and sending quite a bit of water down the street to the storm drain.

It was odd that they hadn’t shut off when they were supposed to, but what made it even more odd was the fact that they are tied in with about half the sprinklers across the driveway on the main lawn, and those were off. So one of my sprinkler valves came on but failed to turn off, but some of its sprinklers were off and some were on.

If you know anything at all about sprinkler valves and piping, you know that what I just described is impossible, without demonic sprinkler possession being in play.

I went to all five valves and turned them on and off manually. That did not solve the problem.

I went to the sprinkler controller in the garage and turned it off. They kept running. That should also be impossible.

OK, maybe the sprinkler controller has shorted internally, I thought to myself. So, I actually disconnected each and every valve control wire from their terminals. There was no longer any possible way the valve could be signaled to be on.

The sprinklers kept running.

It was at this point that I got down on my knees in my garage and prayed for God to exorcise the evil irrigation demon that had possessed my home. I prayed hard, because I had other things to do with my morning than battle the Demon of Irritrol, but the good Lord did not stop the raging waters.

He did, however, provide me with some clarity. As I prayed for the sake of my water bill and protection from the rath of the California Eternal Drought Coalition Forces, it finally occurred to me that if half the sprinklers on one valve weren’t on, then those sprinklers weren’t on that valve. The system is wired to appear and operate as if the sprinklers on both sides of the driveway are on one valve, but they couldn’t possibly be, demonic possession or not. Water just doesn’t work that way.

So somewhere underground, that control wire from terminal 2 is connected to another control wire that goes to another valve that controls my three rogue sprinklers, and at some point during the monsoon months, that valve got corroded enough that it no longer shuts off automatically.

Yay!

But where could that mystery valve be, you ask? It’s buried underground in the backyard in a valve box that was abandoned years ago when we put the pool in. I thought the valves in that box only controlled the backyard lawn sprinklers that were dug up by the pool excavator. I was obviously mistaken. At least one of them is pigtail-wired off Valve Number 2 to run three sprinklers next to my driveway that don’t shut off anymore.

Demonic possession officially ruled out. Thank you, Jesus?

So, after shutting off the water to the whole system to stop the flooding, I wrote myself a note to spend Saturday on an exploratory digging expedition.

It was my wife’s idea to have kids and buy a house. I wanted to live on a boat. Boats never have sprinkler issues, because you don’t need a pool.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2023 Marc Schmatjen

 

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The 2022 Do-it-Yourself Christmas Letter

You’ve done it to yourself again, haven’t you? It’s December 21st and you haven’t even started to write your annual Christmas letter yet, have you? You’re out of time, out of patience, and for three years now, you’ve been close to being out of toilet paper.  

Sure, just like our hopes for the future, things look bleak. But have no Christmas fear! While I can’t do anything about your toilet paper situation or your Aunt Ethel’s impending fruitcake delivery, I can certainly help in the communications department.

The 2022 DIY Christmas letter is here, just for you.

So, pour yourself another glass of mommy and daddy’s special holiday cheer, grab a #2 pencil, and start bubbling in the appropriate choices. You’re all set.

No need to thank me. It’s just what I do.

 

Christmas 2022

Dear

O   friends and cherished loved ones,

O   relatives,

O   people from work,

O   people I don’t know on this list my spouse handed me,

Merry Christmas from the

O   Smith

O   Gonzalez

O   Lee

O   Johnson

O   Other _______________

 

family!

 

We can’t believe

O   how time flies.

O   winter is here again so soon.

O   how surprisingly lame this year has been.

O   we have to send this damned letter to so many of you.

 

What a year! We

O   are so blessed.

O   are, we must admit, a little tired.

O   are relieved it’s finally over.

O   seriously need to just sell the kids and move to an island.

 

2022 started with

O   joy in our hearts

O   a ridiculous amount of snow and ice

O   anxiety

O   a whole lotta mood-altering substances

 

and is ending with

O   gratitude and peace.

O   even more *%@#&$ snow.

O   dread.

O   jail time, most likely.

 

Dad can’t seem to

O   sit still,

O   stop complaining,

O   snap out of his funk,

O   put a cork in it,

 

and he

O   continues to volunteer at the church and the shelter.

O   won’t shut up about gas prices.

O   lives in his pajamas.

O   was on a bender and MIA at least half the year.

 

Mom hasn’t

O   lost a step

O   lifted a finger around the house

O   shut up

O   been seen

 

since her

O   record-breaking hip replacement recovery time.

O   epic hangnail incident.

O   lottery numbers were “only three away” from the “big money.”

O   parole officer reported her for not checking in this summer.

 

Sister lives

O   near us now.

O   day to day.

O   on borrowed time.

O   above a strip club.

 

She

O   moved back with her family for a big promotion.

O   pretends to be holding it together, but a relapse is obviously coming.

O   is five states away, and that still doesn’t seem far enough.

O   was named employee of the month at Big Tony’s Gentlemen’s Club and Laundromat.

 

Brother is

O   switching parenting roles with his wife and staying home with the kids

O   never too far from the couch

O   making one bad decision after another

O   spiraling out of control

 

while his

O   wife continues to climb the ladder at her amazing job.

O   unemployment checks continue to roll in.

O   bookie keeps contacting us regarding his whereabouts.

O   childhood hopes and dreams slowly circle the giant toilet bowl of life.

 

The grandkids just keep growing

O   up

O   outward

O   bolder

O   weed

 

and we wish

O   we could slow time down somehow to enjoy it all a little longer.

O   they would lay off the McCrap and eat a vegetable every once in a while.

O   their parents would actually discipline their insolent little butts.

O   the court system would be tougher on minors.

 

We hope this letter finds you

O   thriving and loving life

O   before Christmas

O   relatively sober

O  

 

this year, and we want to

O   extend our warmest holiday wishes to you and yours.

O   let you know we are still alive, despite what you may have heard.

O   make sure we keep in touch, so we have a “what not to do” example for the kids.

O   be done writing now.

 

If you ever find yourself in town,

O   please come by, we’d love to see you!

O   don’t hesitate to let us know you were here.

O   just remember, we’re away a lot.

O   I’ll bet you’ll be wondering how you got here, you lush!

Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

 

You’re welcome. Now just sign, copy and send. You’re all set.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

 

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

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An Open Letter to the Guy Who Installed My Floor

Dear Captain Staple Gun,

I don’t know who you are, but since my house was built in the early 2000s, I am assuming you are in your mid to late 30s now. You might still work in construction if you managed to get yourself under control. If you did not calm down, I doubt you were able to hold down any sort of real job and are probably reading this from your parent’s basement.

I’m writing you today because I’m in the process of installing laminate flooring in our master bathroom, with which, you are familiar. You, after all, were there about twenty years ago installing the extra sheet of plywood onto the subfloor in the tiny little three-foot by five-foot toilet room.

Your boss, I’m sure, explained to you that the three-eighths plywood was necessary to raise the floor in that room up ever so slightly so the light beige linoleum would match the height of the dark beige carpet in the main bathroom.

In case you were wondering, the key words that identify the need for our new laminate flooring project are ”beige,” “linoleum,” and “bathroom carpet.”

I just want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for not gluing it down. Since the laminate floor will be continuous throughout the bathroom, I needed to pull out your small sheet of riser plywood so the subfloor would all be the same height. I was already on my knees when I discovered it, so I stopped and prayed that it was not glued down.

I’m not sure if you happen to remember which member of your construction crew installed our original hardwood floors downstairs, but if you do, I’d love it if you would do me a favor and set fire to their house.

We had this same laminate flooring installed in the entire downstairs area of our house a few years back, and I decided I would remove the old hardwood floors myself. After all, they were only in the kitchen and foyer. I thought, how hard could it be?

I’ll answer that for you. They were glued down with some substance the Pentagon would love to know about. You could have vaporized all of Placer county with a targeted nuclear strike centered on my home and those floors would have remained securely attached to the concrete slab, somewhere hundreds of miles away.

I had to cut through the hardwood with a Skilsaw, making a cut perpendicular to the board lengths every three inches, and chip the floor off with a giant long-handled scraper. It took our entire family of five a whole week to get the floor out of two rooms. I honestly wished I’d had access to nuclear weapons at the time. I still have a lingering case of PTSD about the whole thing.

So, yes, thank you for not gluing the plywood down, knowing you had access to whatever the hell that stuff was. That being said, this is where my thanks to you stops.

Instead of glue, you used the pneumatic staple gun that shoots two-inch construction staples. Good choice. I would have used that too. And if I was installing the small little piece of plywood to the small little floor of the small little toilet room, I would have used anywhere from twenty to thirty staples total. But that’s because I tend to overdo it a little on my fastener count. I want to know that it’s going to stay nailed down.

Not you, though. No sir. You, my friend, are on an entirely different level. I hammered my prybar under that sheet of plywood and got stopped cold by your first row of staples across the doorway. You had over thirty staples in that first row alone. The door is only twenty-eight inches wide, so you were doing better than one staple per inch. Impressive.

Speaking of staples per inch, or in the regular construction world, inches per staple, it would have been cool if you had some sort of plan or consistency to your work. But you didn’t. In some areas I encountered staples grouped so close together they were actually touching each other. In other places I may have gone a full two inches before I came upon another one of your little projectiles.

There was one spot in the middle where you had a six-inch line of staples so close together it looked like a zipper. A removal project that should have taken me about ten minutes to complete ended up taking me hours. Hours on my hands and knees in a tiny little room doesn’t really work for me anymore. I’m old now. And in more pain now because of your insane rampant stapling.

I just have to ask. What the hell were you doing? Were you hiding from the boss but needed to sound like you were still working? Were you hiding from the crazy hardwood gluer guy? Can’t blame you there. Was it the end of the day and you wanted to milk that project as long as possible so you didn’t have to start something else? I just have to know!

Were you getting paid by the staple instead of by the hour? That would explain why my fifteen-square-foot floor was honestly more staples than actual wood. I’m amazed it didn’t all cave in from the sheer weight of the steel.

Or was it your first day on the job and/or the first time you ever used a nail gun? If that was the case, then I guess I’m glad you had fun at least. And I hope you haven’t lost that childlike enthusiasm for life. I just never want you to do anything like that again.

Ever.

I have to go take more Advil now.

Settle down,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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The 2021 Do-It-Yourself Christmas Letter

Welp, 2021 came and went so quickly you completely forgot to write your Christmas letter again this year. Hey, it’s not your fault, it was crazy-fast for all of us. It’s the PTSD from 2020. Don’t beat yourself up.

But it’s three days ‘til Christmas and there’s no way you can get a coherent letter put together in time now. Not with all the residual 2020 traumatic stress and whatnot.

Well, once again, ol’ Smidgey Claus has got you covered. I have created the 2021 DIY Christmas Letter Grid. Just pick one item from each column in order to string together a sentence that captures the essence of your 2021 experience. Repeat as needed to fully recap this whirlwind of a year.

Now, get to it. There’s no time to lose.

 

COLUMN 1	COLUMN 2	COLUMN 3	COLUMN 4
We lost	our child tax credit checks	in	the harassment charges.
We sheltered with	Simone Biles	after	the labor shortage.
We opened	toilet paper, again	during	school and pro sports.
We cried about	booster shots	in the middle of	Ted Lasso.
We prayed for	Harry & Meghan	since	the trip to space.
We freed	Elon Musk	prior to	Olympic skateboarding.
We bought	the supply chain	from	the conservatorship.
We gained	Britney Spears	after	the Delta variant.
We worried about	TikTok	throughout	the Capitol riot.
We abandoned	Afghanistan	despite	the flooding.
We lived without	Andrew Cuomo	before	a Zoom meeting.

There you go. Now add a “Merry Christmas,” sign, and send. You’re all set.

No need to thank me. It’s what I do. Now crack open that second bottle of spiked eggnog and let’s all pray this next year is a lot less weird than the last two.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

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Symphonic Sneezes

I Googled myself yesterday. I do that every few months to check on all those arrest warrants and bad credit claims that may or may not be against me, but I can pay just $9.95 for the PeopleSearch.com Premium Plan to find out for sure.

Also, as an author, I always enjoy seeing what crazy German, Arabic, and Indian book websites are selling my books, which are all in English. You can pick up a copy of Bullies & Bagels for just under 3,800 rupees. Can you believe it?

There are nine pages of me on Google, and yesterday I scrolled through all of them for fun and a couple of new items caught my eye, besides the possible impending credit and legal actions.

I am now actually quoted on wisefamousquotes.com under the “quotes about spit” category.

Men are far more likely to clean things with spit than women are. ~ Marc Schmatjen

I am definitely the originator of that quote, and while I appreciate them including me in their stable of quoted folks, I do have to take issue with the name of the website and its implied description of the website’s contents. In my opinion, “wisefamousquotes.com” should probably contain only wise quotes by famous people, or famous quotes by wise people, or some combination thereof.

My quote about spit is not wise, and I am not famous. Simply having a quote category named “quotes about spit” calls the entire “wise and famous” premise into serious question, don’t you think?

Still, it was fun to see.

The one that really made my day, though, was a calendar event at The Virginia Discovery Museum. From their website:

The Virginia Discovery Museum is proud to partner with Charlottesville Symphony to offer virtual musical storytimes and instrument demonstrations. Meet a new musician each month as we learn about instruments from the brass, percussion, string, and woodwind families.

On December 4th, 2020, Katy Ambrose, who is the Principal Horn (Brass) for The Charlottesville Symphony, located at The University of Virginia, read (and played) the kids my book, The Very Sneezy Garbage Truck, and apparently introduced them to a DIY instrument called the Hose-O-Phone.

I spit out my coffee when I read that.

What happens when Sneezy the garbage truck picks up his weekly load at a new factory? Meet principal horn Katy Ambrose, from Charlottesville Symphony, and learn all about brass instruments as she brings “The Very Sneezy Garbage Truck” by Marc Schmatjen to life through sound during a virtual musical story time.

I clicked on their link to the DIY project and I could not be more sad that I only just found out about this and I didn’t have the chance to Zoom into the reading back in December. I would have loved to see and hear a professional musician, so skilled in her craft that she is the leader for her instrument in an actual symphony orchestra, make garbage truck sneezing sounds and air horn noises with a makeshift horn constructed from a funnel, a garden hose, and a water bottle cap for a mouthpiece.

I mean, I guess she could have used her actual symphony instrument, but in my mind, she’s reading my goofy book to a bunch of kids and making glorified farts noises with a hose-o-phone.

I emailed the director of programming at the Virginia Discovery Museum, first to tell him or her that they are a genius, and second to request a copy of the recording if it exists.

You can rest assured that when I return to in-person school visits and finally get to read to kids again, the kindergartners and first graders are going to see me walk into their classroom wearing a DIY Hose-O-Phone across my chest like a bandolier!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

The 2020 Do-It-Yourself Christmas Letter

Much like your sense of self-worth and your will to put on real pants, you’ve also completely lost your desire to write a Christmas letter this year. Hey, don’t beat yourself up. This is 2020! Who could blame you?

But now it’s two days ‘til Christmas and you’re kicking yourself about it while you sit motionless in your couch divot in the same pair of pajama pants you’ve been wearing since Halloween. There’s no way you can get a coherent letter put together in time now.

Well, once again, ol’ Smidgey Claus has got you covered. I have created the 2020 DIY Christmas Letter Grid. Just pick one item from each column in order to string together a sentence that best fits your 2020 experience. Repeat as needed to fully recap your dumpster fire of a year.

Now, get to it. There’s no time to lose.

COLUMN 1	COLUMN 2	COLUMN 3	COLUMN 4
We lost	our jobs	in	the election.
We hoarded	masks	after	the hurricanes.
We sheltered with	toilet paper	during	the wildfires.
We cried about	Tiger King	in the middle of	the couch.
We prayed for	at least 20 pounds	since	the lockdown.
We binged	junk food	prior to	the DOW crash.
We gained	the vaccine	before	the rioting.
We bought	personal hygiene	after	COVID-19.
We worried about	alcohol	throughout	social distancing.
We abandoned	essential workers	despite	distance learning.
We lived without	Amazon Prime	from	a Zoom meeting.

There you go. Now add a “Merry Christmas,” sign, and send. You’re all set.

Don’t say I never did anything for you! Now hunker down in your couch divot and let’s pray for 2021 to get here ASAP.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge