Dear friends, relatives and co-workers who are not on the HR “watch list,”

Merry/Happy Whatever-You-Do-And/Or-Don’t Celebrate! Welcome to our family’s annual Holiday newsletter!

We know it’s 2017. We aren’t Luddites. We’re are on all the major social media platforms (including Anxietizer, D-Nouncer and, of course, TimeSukk). We dutifully document by word, photo and hashtag every meal and movement (even THOSE movements — bless our poor parakeet’s IBS) because, as our youngest child says, “Thank you, Kardashians!”

But the physical act of Writing a letter, putting it an envelope and paying a deep-in-debt quasi-government agency to deliver it oh-so-slowly is so comforting, so cathartic, so old-school uncool America. That’s why I’m writing this by hand with a piece of only the finest Appalachian strip-mined coal available from Williams-Sonoma. If it was good enough for Lincoln’s homework, it’s good enough for you! So pardon the smudges, and here we go: