December 14, 2008
Sunday

A skit last night on Saturday Night Live had Hugh Laurie playing a man who is supposed to be typing into his computer the text of the family holiday letter that his wife (Kristen Wiig) has composed.

“Cat-tention! Cat-tention!” she begins. “Meowy Christmas! I hope your year was purr-fect!” She is using a voice that sounds like a cross between Queen Elizabeth and a cat in distress. Her husband asks if she must read it like that, and she says that she needs to read it “the way he would” so that she gets the pacing right. “And ‘purr-fect’ has seven Rs,” she reminds him.

After the second paragraph, it becomes clear that the cat is dead, having been run over by a neighbor’s SUV. The husband objects. “Do you really want to go from being a ghostwriter for a cat to a writer for a ghost cat?” The wife persists, making references to cat heaven, the supposed author being reunited with his friends (other cats in the neighborhood that have died), and the husband and wife as “my parents,” commenting on their adjustment to his loss.

The bit is a good example of satire, that genre of literature which attempts to examine a human folly by means of ridicule, sarcasm, and irony. The key to good satire is exaggeration, and the SNL holiday letter was excellent in that regard. No one would write a letter in the voice of a dead pet, would they?

They would. I got one.

A few years ago I received my usual Christmas card from a former teaching colleague. I knew what to expect. Although he’s a sophisticated and talented fellow — math teacher, actor, surfer, world traveller — he did have the habit of writing his holiday letter in the voice of his dog, Bucky. The dog would tell us all about what Gary had been up to the previous year. He would also bring us up-to-date on his wonderful Aunt Sheila, Gary’s sister, who looked after the dog during the summers when Gary was travelling.

I read, mentally rolling my eyes. What makes people do this? I wondered. I wondered that every single year while I read Gary’s (or was it Bucky’s?) letter. and then, two lines from the top of the second page, the font suddenly changed. And it was Gary, writing in his own voice with the sad news that Bucky had died before he could complete this year’s letter. It went into detail about the gruesome condition that had led to the reluctant decision (jointly by Gary and Sheila) to put the dog down, an event that had to be scheduled around Sheila’s availability to come for the funeral.

It ended with a suggestion for memorial contributions to an animal welfare organization.

I felt bad, at least for a little while, that I had made fun of Gary’s (or Bucky’s) letter. He was one of those little fluffball dogs, more hair than muscle, and he yipped and yapped a lot whenever I went over there and often spent most of the evening going in and out of his swinging pet door. I wondered briefly if Gary would have the door sealed up (the letter said he wasn’t interested in another dog), since he said it was drafty and sometimes attracted strangers (or maybe Bucky brought them in). But I felt sad for Gary, who really did like the dog, and regretted that I’d been making fun of what were essentially Bucky’s last words.

And maybe I have no room to talk. Who knows how many people roll their eyes and make fun of my holiday letter (which at least is in my own voice). For many years it has been my practice to begin writing the letter during the week after my party (which would have been today) and have it ready to mail on the Feast of Stephen (December 26). I bought pretty paper with a western theme in Wyoming last year but didn’t write the letter. See, the first thing I do is print out the recipient list and begin checking it, and last year I just felt very sad because someone at the top of the third page had died only a few days before. I think I also failed to send one in 2006, when I discovered three names I’d have to remove for the same reason.

I haven’t thought it through, but I suspect that at least one name might have to be removed this year. I’ll get to that task this week. Even though I didn’t have my party, writing the letter this week will keep me anchored in the holiday season.

At least it won’t be in the voice of the squirrel that fell into the pond probably just before the first hard frost in 2006 and turned up in the muck when Ron cleared things out at the start of the new season. 

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A year ago, I was back in the ‘burg after a month in Wyoming.

Two years ago, I said the right things to a grieving person, and recalled a time when I hadn’t.

Three years ago, I wrote about how my friend Dennee contacted me after more than thirty years after finding her name in a blog post.

Four years ago, I wrote about baking cookies, and included a picture of my mother smiling.

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