Christmas letters, blogs and other nuisances...

The BLOG has now become the dreaded Christmas letter - without the cost of postage and with the happy option of ignoring it without adding to your local landfill. I never like those chatty letters about everyone else's perfect life - with photos their immaculately groomed children grinning almost insanely, wearing matching Christmas outfits. You just know some people have been waiting all year to brag about their kids, their good fortune, etc. Of course, if my 8 year old had been to 7 countries in the past year or my 5 year old spoke fluent Mandarin I might be tempted to brag, too.

We all have a web presence now. Many of us have moved beyond what my father deemed the "narcissism" of Facebook into the admittedly more narcissistic Blog.

Now I think you want to know not just what I'm making for dinner or my thoughts at the moment, but details about these things! Hilarious, I admit. On the other hand, if you've read any of my blogs I'm NOT bragging. Bitching, maybe; but bragging, never!

We've had lots of happy moments this year, but there have been trials and tragedies as well. Let's see this blog started with the failure of our sewage ejector pump and continued through a broken hip, hospitalizations and my frustrations with Medicaid. To not acknowledge the bad times minimizes the moments of pure joy that we share. Life, like marriage, is "for better or worse."

My blog started as a way to earn a free trip to Walt Disney World - write 100 posts and get admitted into the MomBloggers club which gets me an inside track to free trips (as long as I blog about them....)  I'm at 59 posts. To my amazement my most recent stats have me at 4,651 "views" - paltry compared to a friend that got 25,000 in  day! However I am proud of my modest success. I think I have to abandon the free Disney dream.  I enjoy writing. As I have admitted, this is the "online diary of a middle aged Mom." However, I can't write about why you should buy all of your gifts through Amazon.com or subscribe to an online shopping service.

Sometimes I'm maudlin, self-pitying or angry. Sometimes I'm introspective or even funny. But, I'm never for sale so bye-bye free trip to Disney. Hello, 2012! Wonder what I'll write about next year...