Woes of a Yule Correspondent

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff

Published by the StarTribune

December 23, 1962

   THE ONLY MAN I ever heard of who threw himself with complete abandon into Christmas correspondence is me. This year I have been wheeling and dealing on a vaster scale than ever before, squandering time and energy on a binge of Yule verbiage that has pleased my wife and exhausted me.

   I perform under grave handicap, too, being unable to write with a pen at all. What talent I ever had in this direction was crushed by making those crazy loops during grade-school penmanship class in a remote yesterday. An inclination to palsy compounds the difficulty.

   The happy personal thoughts my wife and I consider a necessary adjunct to the out-of-town Christmas card are no problem to her. She can bat them out with assembly line precision. Her pen flies over the cards like lightning--the message neat, legible, precise and meaningful.

   I MUST CRANK CARD into typewriter, an exacting job in itself if the card is not to emerge looking like something snatched from a meat grinder, and give the thing a 10-minute pre-start glare.

   Once under way, I perform with little dispatch. The big reason is that the short but adequate greeting is not in me. I must tell it all, starting with last Jan. 1.

   As I labor I try not to think that I alone among husbands bear this seasonal yoke. After all, it is a burden I carry voluntarily and the task is not barren of reward. I enjoy being a martyr.

   One fellow asked me why in the name of divine providence--if I insisted on telling folks more than they wanted to know--I didn't get the spiel mimeographed. I always think of this practical solution too late but probably wouldn't employ it anyway. I like to send something different to each customer and have done things the hard way for so long it's difficult to break the habit.

   My car pool pal, a fellow with a genius for ducking work, seldom turns a hand at Christmas correspondence. I doubt that he even buys the stamps. Once mowing the lawn and tending the begonias are ruled out, he seldom turns a hand at anything. His wife puts up the storm windows, makes out his income tax return, and does what's necessary to be done pending arrival of the plumber. He boasts that he's never changed a tire. I doubt that his spouse could say as much.

   I UNDERSTAND HIS reluctance to help with Christmas cards, though, and his wife's willingness to have him keep his mitts out of the job. He is a facile fellow with words but his handwriting would confound a pharmacist. And in all his years of newspapering he never has conquered a typewriter. The machine that does not buck, skip and overline under his touch is yet to be manufactured. Should his wife ever be indisposed during the Yuletide, the most considerate thing he could do would be to send out no Christmas cards at all.

   I had planned to write a nostalgic and sentimental Christmas column but all the sentiment I possess has been lavished on the aforementioned greetings to old friends. I hope they appreciate my effort to add joy to their holiday. I also hope that they, and all readers of these choleric lines, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

   Now that the Christmas correspondence is finished and I've bought my wife that ironing board, I've caught the spirit of the season, too.

Copyright 2015 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.