Do any of your people send out those year-end holiday newsletters in lieu of, or in addition to, Christmas cards? It’s a neat idea, it totally is, especially if you don’t spent your days lurking on their Facebook page. The downside to this kind of annual summary of key family events and accomplishments is that they rarely ever present a balanced look at the prior 12 months. Instead, the recaps are filled with glowing, infomercial-quality entries like this:
“In the Spring, our dearest Herbert completed his 2nd master’s degree in bio-nuclear-physiological-space-engineering, (his first, of course, was in neo-classical-modern-interpretative-dance) but not before being awarded a special prize by a Nobel Laureate for his charitable work in Uganda. We are SO proud of our first born!”
and
“Little Gertrude dazzled in the lead role in all four of her grade school theatrical productions this year, winning acclaim from the local newspaper. Her sit down interview with Channel 6 news has been viewed over 91,000 times on YouTube and Broadway agents are starting to call her at home! Next year is going to be even better for the star of our family!”
and
“The bond between Eugene and I just keeps getting stronger and so we renewed our vows again – we just can’t help ourselves!! – in a private ceremony on the beach in Santa Barbara. It was almost too lovely! We wish you could have been there with us but Chef Jean-Georges recommended an intimate event (his cooking is divine!). Our intense love after 24 AMAZING years together continues to fuel our thrice weekly his & her crossfit workouts (pssst, you should really try crossfit!)”
and
something obnoxious about an adopted puppy from a kill shelter.
I mean, really?
REALLY?
As a writer and photographer, someone who puts himself and his family ‘out there’ for public consumption (to a certain point), I prefer to not let it all hang out but not scrub and sanitize our lives either. This is Parenting Unfiltered and this is a little look back at the year that was for us Bogles.
- Our single day in Yosemite during our cross country road trip was ruined by yours truly because I was preemptively pissed off that the lighting was going to suck by the time we got into the famed valley…and then was very much pissed off that I was correct by the time we drive into the home of Half Dome and El Capitan. The sun was in a poor spot to photograph that special place and I threw even more shade on everyone’s virgin Yosemite experience as a result.
- Bugs in kids’ hair? Yeah, we experienced that for the first time ever. It is EVERYTHING it is cracked up to be. Also, holy crap those Lice Kits at the pharmacy expensive! Even more expensive? The specialist salons that promise to eradicate the pests in one treatment, but even on Day Zero of the outbreak we were pretty much already at the “here, take all our money” point in the process. That or “let’s burn everything to the ground and start anew.”
- I pride myself on crushing it when it comes to travel planning and booking, but there was that time when I tried to check into a hotel at 1am only to discover that I had booked the wrong date at the sold out hotel and ended up sleeping in the car during a 28 degree night. Cozy.
- Speaking of driving long distances with miserable results, sports road trips in movies and on TV are portrayed as raucous parties with victory toasts and high fives all around. Yeah, not quite. Our most recent annual Red Wings / Michigan State Spartans sports road trip couldn’t have gone much worse on the ice or the court. First, no one enjoyed our first ever Spartans basketball home game as my beloved squad fell to the worst college team in the country in a dreadfully sloppy game. And then, less than 24 hours later, we four watched a thoroughly dull hockey game as the Red Wings struggled to generate any offense in a drab 1-1 tie before eventually losing in an excruciating shootout in which no team could score for what seemed like hours on end. Yay sports!
Life and parenting isn’t all cupcakes and kittens. I don’t care what Pinterest and Facebook says. Sometimes your teams’ suck, sometimes there’s no room at the inn, and sometimes you have to shave your kids’ heads and burn all their stuffed animals in a ceremonial killing (not really…but it was on the table for a minute). Tell the world how your 2015 really went with Plum Organics Parenting Unfiltered holiday newsletter. They are hilarious and super easy to make, save and share.
*OWTK was compensating by Plum Organics for this #ParentingUnfiltered story. All opinions, facts and messy details above are 100% factual…unfortunately.
